They followed the road, departing from the coastline to pass above a string of dark lochs. To the left rose a sharp pinnacle of rock, which Chrissy was told was the Old Man of Storr.

‘They had a big electrical storm on Skye last night,’ Neil told her. ‘Knocked out the power for a while.’ He pointed ahead. ‘And there’s Kilt Rock.’

Chrissy craned her head for a better view of the pleated rock formation, which looked even more daunting in real life. Her stomach somersaulted at the sight of it.

‘Shit! Rhona’s at the foot of that?’

‘One hundred and eighty feet down, the pilot assures me. Hope you have a good head for heights,’ Neil said brightly.

As they began their descent, Chrissy spotted a car park busy with police and MRT vehicles. Plus what looked suspiciously like a burger van.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ she said, her spirits lifting.

‘The Black Sheep food truck,’ Neil assured her. ‘And I intend visiting it.’

Chrissy only realized the full extent of her hunger when she was offered her haggis roll. This morning’s early start avoiding the lab had meant missing her usual copiously filled roll and coffee breakfast, which she and Rhona had liked to indulge in.

On the way here, she’d resigned herself to a locus out in the wilds with no food on hand. A common enough problem when out on the job. At least in Glasgow they could send a young obliging uniform to the nearest chippy.

Chrissy certainly hadn’t imagined finding such an outlet here in a car park in the middle of nowhere.

Already in receipt of her coffee, she now gratefully accepted the loaded haggis roll she’d ordered and proceeded to add some tomato ketchup to it.

‘I’ll need another one of these,’ she said after the first bite. ‘Chances are I won’t get anything after this for a while.’

The young woman nodded with a smile.

‘Oh, and do you know if any food’s been sent down to Dr MacLeod on the shore?’

‘I don’t think so,’ the girl said.

‘Then make that two more haggis rolls, and stick some bacon on them too.’

Armed with her second breakfast, Chrissy turned to find a black-and-white Border collie waiting next in the queue.

‘Hi, Blaze,’ the girl in the van was saying. ‘The usual?’

The dog seemed to indicate by a single bark that that was indeed the case.

Impressed by this interchange, Chrissy greeted her new acquaintance.

‘So you’re the famous Blaze I’ve heard so much about.’

She held out her hand, not expecting the dog to deliver the high five that it did.

‘And you’re clever too,’ she said. ‘What else do you do?’

A deep male voice answered her question.