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so tight her silver-streaked hair made her look like an elderly poodle, and Joanne tried not to giggle. But in the woman’s eyes there was no doggie warmth, rather a shrewd scrutiny as she examined the customer, the stranger.
    â€œFill her up, please,” Joanne asked.
    â€œRighty-oh.” The woman put in the nozzle, and as the fumes drifted towards her in the North Sea wind, Joanne put a hankie to her face.
    â€œBother you, does it? Och, you get used to it in my job. Calum is always teasing me, saying it’s a wonder I have any sense of smell working here for near twenty-five years.”
    â€œCalum? Are you Mrs. Mackenzie, Calum’s mother?”
    â€œI am that.”
    â€œJoanne Ross, from the Highland Gazette .”
    â€œOh, aye, you’re here because o’ poor Miss Ramsay. Right terrible that trial was. Mind you, some folk have nothing better to do than gossip. Then again, the woman’s aye here there and everywhere.”
    â€œReally? I heard Miss Ramsay likes the quiet life.”
    â€œYou should see the size of her petrol bills.” Even though Alice Ramsay was one of the garage’s best customers, Mrs. Mackenzie was tutting at another example of what she saw as Miss Ramsay’s deceptions. “No, she must cover a fair distance, as she buys at least a tank o’ petrol a week. Up to thon so-caa’d artist stuff, no doubt.”
    Joanne had to stop herself from staring. Telling this to a stranger? Has the woman no self-awareness? She considered herself a person who was not interested in gossip. Until Don McLeod, deputy editor at the Gazette , had asked her, in her early days as a fledgling reporter, how was a journalist to do their job without listening to gossip?
    The trick was to distinguish between gossip and facts, he taught her, so always check, then double check, and get at least two quotes, with names and ages and addresses.
    â€œYou must know Miss Ramsay well, if you see her every week?”
    Mrs. Mackenzie sensed she had said too much. “There’s knowing, and knowing.” She took the pound note and went inside to fetch change. Examining Joanne through the window, she decided Mrs. Ross was another of those women who didn’t know her place.
    â€œCheery-bye, nice meeting you,” she said as she handed over the coins. Watching the car pull out into the main road, Mrs. Mackenzie thought over what her son, Calum, had told her of this woman.
    â€œIt’ll be good for my career to learn from Joanne,” he’d said, after he’d apologized four times for being late.
    Calling her by her first name indeed, Mrs. Mackenzie was thinking. That flighty fiancée o’ his is a bad enough influence. Now he’s listening to a woman who should be at home minding her family, not haring about the countryside on her own, asking after witches.

    The journey back felt shorter, though the drive took the same time. Joanne felt she had proved to herself, and to McAllister, that she was capable of an outing without someone hovering, their mere presence implying, Are you all right? Are you sure you’re up to it? Maybe you should . . . ?
    I’m fine! she wanted to shout. Completely well. All I need is inspiration, a story, a plot, anything I can lose myself in, and just write.
    Driving over the Bonar Bridge, glancing at the mudflats of the Dornoch Firth, the rotting-vegetation low-tide salt stench seeping in through a third-of-the-way-open window, a notion came to her, making her smile. If only I could ask a witch.
    She spoke to the mirror. “ ‘I haven’t been able to find a plot,’ I’ll say. ‘Aye, I have just the spell for plots lost and found,’ the witch will tell me. ‘That will be two silver shillings, thank you.’ ”

C HAPTER 4

    N ext day, in the minutes before the brain and the body were entirely awake, those minutes when the tea-making ritual was accomplished in