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wing, Gunn caught Fin’s arm. ‘So he was up here poaching was he, Mr Macleod? Your pal Whistler.’
    ‘He was.’
    ‘In a storm?’
    Fin nodded, but knew that Gunn could sense he was being evasive.
    ‘Not that simple, George.’
    Where Whistler was concerned, nothing was ever simple. And Fin turned his thoughts back to the events of two days before, wondering how he could ever have been so foolish as to have taken the bait.

CHAPTER FIVE
I
    As he drove home the night after that first encounter with Whistler, Fin’s thoughts had been dominated by him. The way he lived, the imminent eviction from his home.
    The sun cast lengthening shadows among the dried grasses on the rise as he passed the turn-off to the Crobost Free Church. He cast a glance towards the manse standing on the hill above it, and the Reverend Murray’s car parked at the foot of the steps. Although they had never seen eye to eye on God and faith, Fin felt enormous empathy for his childhood friend, and each time he passed the church shared something of Donald’s hurt. Along with anger that people could so lack understanding.
    The collection of houses and crofts that made up the village of Crobost, treeless and exposed to the wind, was strung along half a mile of clifftop above the beach at Port of Ness, the most northerly port on the island. But the harbour was storm-damaged and these days used only by the odd crabber. From here Fin could see a few small boatsdragged up on to the sand, or bobbing in the shelter of the harbour wall, tugging gently on creaking ropes.
    A good hundred yards or so closer to Port of Ness than Fin’s parents’ croft stood Marsaili’s bungalow, just below the road. It had belonged to Artair’s parents. But both they and Artair were gone now, and Marsaili lived there with her son. Who was Fin’s son, too.
    The old crofthouse up the road where he had lived until the death of his parents was only partially restored. Fin had stripped it back to its stone walls. He had put a new roof on it. But it wasn’t yet habitable, and he had moved in with Marsaili. A temporary arrangement, they had both agreed. He was to have had Artair’s mother’s old room. But in no time he had found himself in Marsaili’s bed. As if all the years which had passed since the summer of love they had shared before leaving for university had never been. The people they had become in between, the separate lives they had led, seemed unreal now. Like phantoms in a bad dream. And yet, Fin knew, there was something missing. Whether it was something in him, or in Marsaili, or something in the way they had never quite been able to recreate the magic of that lost summer, he could not have said. But whatever it was, it troubled him.
    Marsaili’s car stood on the gravel at the top of the path down to the bungalow, its tailgate raised. Fin drew in behind it. He crossed the grass to the path and felt it almost brittle underfoot, the peaty soil beneath it hard after so long without rain. The kitchen door stood open and he could hear Marsaili’s voice calling from somewheredeeper in the house. ‘And don’t forget that knitted jumper. It’s warm now, but it’ll be cold in no time, and you’ll need it.’
    As he stepped into the kitchen he heard Fionnlagh’s shouted response from the bedroom upstairs. ‘There’s not enough room in the case.’ Fin smiled. Knitted jumpers were not exactly fashionable, and Fionnlagh was nothing if not a young man of his times.
    ‘I’ll come up if you want!’
    ‘No, no, it’s all right. I’ll get it in somehow.’
    Fin was quite sure that Marsaili would find that knitted jumper at the bottom of a drawer in days to come. She came into the kitchen sighing her exasperation. ‘Boys!’ The word exploded from her, and she threw a dangerous look in the direction of Fin’s laughter. It was a look he loved. Full of the spirit of the Marsaili of old, auburn hair swept back from a fine face with smiling lips, and cornflower-blue