When Jamie had disappeared into the kitchen, Chrissy threw Rhona an I’ve got stuff to tell you look. ‘I learned a lot about Skye last night. Even managed some Gaelic.’

Rhona decided not to ask any questions. The likelihood was, the less she asked, the keener Chrissy would be to tell her.

‘I thought you could cover the clifftop this morning,’ Rhona said, ignoring the gesture from Chrissy suggesting they go somewhere out of earshot. ‘Jamie will go with you.’

Chrissy’s expressions were getting wilder, so Rhona gave in and motioned that they should go upstairs.

Once inside Rhona’s room, Chrissy closed the door.

‘I stayed with Donald last night out at A.C.E Target Sports.’

Rhona’s expression suggested she’d guessed that already.

‘We talked about the group of medics who were game-playing up there. The ones that stayed at the Isles for a night?’

Rhona nodded. ‘And?’

‘Donald said one of them, the girl, was an excellent axe thrower. Also very good with a knife. He said one guy was complaining about the games being child’s play for them, because they’d seen the real thing in Afghanistan. And he preferred throwing full-sized axes, rather than the tomahawk version.’

Rhona listened in silence, before reminding Chrissy that Donald had also said the group had left without a scratch on them.

Chrissy nodded. ‘I know, but Donald said that later in the pub they were all drinking shots and whooping when they heard the coastguard helicopter go over. It was as though they were back in the field. In retrospect, Donald wondered if they were planning something.’

‘Their camping trip, perhaps?’ Rhona tried, although following Chrissy’s story, it might as easily have been a return trip to the woods, to play a more realistic game.

‘And,’ by Chrissy’s expression, she was coming to the main point of her story, ‘Donald said he walked in on one of the males in the toilet. He says he was pretty sure the guy was high.’

‘Has he told Lee about this?’

‘He said if he told the police every time he thought a visitor to Skye was high . . .’

‘Can Donald provide a good description of them?’

‘I’d say so. He’s an observer, likes watching people.’

‘Does Donald have any thoughts on where the group might have gone?’

‘He says it depends if they want to be found or not.’ Chrissy paused. ‘Is McNab going to the PM?’

Rhona nodded.

‘Then we’ll maybe know more about our beach victim after that.’

A shout from below indicated Jamie was ready to depart.

They split forces outside Jamie’s place, Chrissy and Jamie taking his jeep, while Rhona asked Donald, who’d arrived in the interim, if Blaze might go with her and Alvis, instead of accompanying Chrissy.

‘Sure,’ Donald said, a little puzzled by this new development. ‘D’you need me along?’