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meet any policeman if he could help it, but he hoped to be in, out and heading back to town long before their arrival.
    “I dinna ken what you’re expecting to see,” the watchman said as Alan got out of the car and shook the man’s hand. “There’s nowt but an empty pen.”
    Alan held up his camera.
    “Just a wee photie to go with the story, that’s all I need,” Alan said. “Maybe get you in it too, with the loch in the background? If the story pans out, you might even get on the front page.”
    That was all he needed to say—he’d learned long ago that playing on people’s vanity was the quickest way to get a foot in most doors, and it had worked again here. The watchman let them both in through the sanctuary gate and Alan followed him up a slope to a small maze of birdcages and pens. Several of the cages had birds in them—a haughty osprey, a sleepy owl and some raucous geese all marked their passing. But the man was right—when they arrived at the pen where the swans had been kept, there was nothing to see—no sign of any struggle or break-in at all.
    “There was no damage?”
    “Not a bit. The lock was still in place, still locked shut—or so they told me. It was as if the birds had been spirited away.”
    The man made a quick movement with his hand—Alan spotted it, although it had been done furtively, almost on reflex—a sign against the evil eye. Alan only knew it because his old granddad used to do it when talking about one particular Tory MP, but it had once been common, in older, less enlightened, days.
    “What do you think happened?” Alan asked.
    The man wouldn’t meet his gaze.
    “There’s always been stories about these parts,” he said, almost a whisper. “You can’t swing a cat round here without hitting a haunted castle or a fairy wood or a bogle’s cave. There are some things that can be explained—some things you shouldn’t look at too closely. That’s all I’m saying.”
    The man turned his back—it seemed that particular conversation was over. Alan left the front of the pen and walked its circumference. There were no fresh footprints or scuffmarks on the ground, just a thin deer trail that led off from the south end up to the hill at the back. He pointed at it and called back to the watchman.
    “They could have taken the birds out this way?”
    “They could—if they were daft. It’s a sair trek up yon hill, and a longish way to the nearest place to park a truck. And you’d need a truck, what with six angry swans to contend with. Them birds are a handful at the best of times.”
    “They could have drugged them?”
    “I suppose so. But even then, six swans would make a hefty weight to lug up these hills and through the bogs in the hollows. My guess is they had a truck where you came in—in the car park—nobody would even notice at night, there’s next to no traffic round about here after ten.”
    Alan walked a few yards up the deer trail, in the chance that there might be something that had been overlooked, some clue that might give him a fresh break in the story.
    That’s when it happened. Later he’d try to rationalize and explain, but for now he was lost in a moment that seemed to go on forever. The watchman was talking, but Alan only heard a drone, like the buzz of a bee at a window. The deer track seemed to widen and spread. The landscape before him opened out to a verdant vista looking over blue cliffs that fell in sheer slabs of rock into a turquoise sea foaming with white horses. High to Alan’s right a tall cluster of stone buildings perched on a rocky outcrop, while in front of him the path wound in a serpentine track along the cliff top through tall lush grass. He felt wind in his face, tasted salt spray and smelled summer flowers.
    Something dark rose up from a cliff face in the distance and took flight on black wings, impossibly large.
    A child cried.
    “I’m lost, Mammy.”
    Alan stepped forward—and looked down to see only the thin deer path