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Fin a mischievous look. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”
    â€œHear what?”
    Gunn’s face split into a smile that told Fin they had connected.
    As they headed down the long straight road toward Stornoway, Fin saw the town laid out before them, built around the shelter of the harbour and the tree-covered hill behind it. The glass-and-steel ferry terminal at the head of the new breakwater that had been built in the nineties looked to Fin like a flying saucer. Beyond it, the old pier seemed neglected. It gave him an odd jolt seeing the place again. From a distance it appeared almost exactly as he remembered it. Only the flying saucer was new. And no doubt it had brought a few aliens with it.
    They passed the yellow-painted former mills of Kenneth Mackenzie Limited, where millions of metres of homespun Harris tweed had once been stored on thousands of shelves awaiting export. An unfamiliar terrace of new houses led down to a big metal shed where government money financed the production of television programmes in Gaelic. Although it had been unfashionable in Fin’s day, the Gaelic language was now a multimillion-pound business. The schools even taught maths and history and other subjects through the medium of Gaelic. And these days it was hip to speak it.
    â€œThey rebuilt Engebret’s a year or two ago,” Gunn said as they passed a filling station and minimarket at a roundabout that Fin did not remember. “It’s even open on a Sunday. And you can get a drink or a meal most anywhere in town now on the Sabbath.”
    Fin shook his head in amazement.
    â€œAnd two flights from Edinburgh every Sunday. You can even get the ferry from Ullapool.”
    In Fin’s day the whole island shut down on a Sunday. It was impossible to eat out, or go for a drink, or buy cigarettes or petrol. He could remember tourists wandering the streets on the Sabbath, thirsty and hungry and unable to leave until the first ferry on Monday. Of course, it was well known that after the churches of Stornoway had emptied, the pubs and hotels filled up with secret Sunday revellers who slipped in by the back door. It was not illegal, after all, to drink on the Sabbath, just unthinkable. At least, to be seen doing it.
    â€œDo they still chain up the swings?” Fin remembered the sad sight of children’s swings chained and padlocked on the Sabbath.
    â€œNo, they stopped that a few years ago.” Gunn chuckled. “The Sabbatarians said it was the thin end of the wedge. And maybe they were right.”
    Fundamentalist Protestant churches had dominated island life for centuries. It was said that a publican or a restaurateur who defied the Church would be quietly put out of business. Bank loans called in, licences withdrawn. The power of the Church had seemed medieval to those looking on from the mainland. But it was real enough on the island, where some sects condemned any kind of entertainment as sinful, and any attempt to undermine their authority as the work of the devil.
    Gunn said, “Mind you, even though they don’t chain the swings up anymore, you’ll never see a kid using one on a Sunday. Just like you’ll still not see anyone hanging out their washing. Not outside of the town, anyway.”
    A new sports centre hid Fin’s old school from view. They passed the Comhairle nan Eilean island council offices, and the former Seaforth Hotel opposite a terrace of traditional step-gabled sandstone houses. A mix of new ugly and old ugly. Stornoway had never been the prettiest of towns, and it hadn’t improved. Gunn turned right into Lewis Street, traditional harbour homes cheek by jowl with pubs and dark little shops, then left into Church Street and the police station halfway down. Fin noticed that all the street names were in Gaelic.
    â€œWho’s running the investigation?”
    â€œA crew from Inverness,” Gunn said. “They were helicoptered in in the early hours