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himself in the croft house, opened the windows, and introduced every creature for miles around to the majesty of symphonic music.
    On that very special first evening, he wanted to play music that exactly matched his remote rural surroundings, and the new way he felt about it. For the first time, he was seeing it as a place of space and freedom, instead of a dour prison.
    He started with Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, but decided that it was too genteel. Perfect for the lush meadows and forests it described, but not bare and hard like the northern Scottish coast. It had to be Sibelius - any symphony.
    The gulls took off from the fields, the sheep lifted their heads, as the shimmering, spacious, glorious sound surged over the rugged headland.
    Later, he sold the sheep, bought some new furniture, and traded in his uncle’s old banger for a newer car.

    *

    A few weeks after moving into the croft house, Hector was invited by Callum McDonald to train as a laboratory technician to replace a staff member who was leaving. Presumably, his boss felt some Christian responsibility for him after the death of his uncle.
    He was sent to British Nuclear Fuels central concrete laboratory at Sellafield to attend a series of concrete technology training courses. He had never been south of Inverness, and found the whole business of travelling, finding accommodation, and attending courses, stressful. But he persevered, and managed to pass his examinations.
    During the courses he became infected with his tutor’s enthusiasm for concrete. It wasn’t the boring, grey, man-made material he had thought. It was the scientific blending of natural materials - stones, sands, cements and waters, each with an infinite variety of sizes, strengths, porosities, viscosities, hardnesses, absorptions, colours.
    Hector found the whole subject fascinating, and he threw himself enthusiastically into his work when he returned to his laboratory.
    Things were looking up. Now he was a man of property, with a good job, and two absorbing passions - music and concrete. His third passion, Kathleen Rinaldi, still remained a fantasy of the night.

Chapter 8

    The red squirrels were doing their early morning party piece, scrambling up the oars Ben had left leaning against the cottage wall. Near them stood his fishing rod, and two golf clubs. They were all supposed to reside in the garage, but they never seemed to get there until he brought the boat up from the lake for winter maintenance.
    Ben filled up the bird nut holder and scattered grain for the pheasants that gathered around his ankles. As usual, the mallard ducks started to nudge the pheasants out and take over their food, until Ben scattered their breakfast on a different part of the lawn.
    While they all tucked in, Ben took hold of a golf club and took a practice swing. A chunk of lawn flew up. As he retrieved the divot, a knock on the conservatory window attracted his attention. Helen sat at the window, drinking her morning coffee, waving her fist in mock annoyance at the damage to the lawn, then mimed that his coffee was ready.
    Ben replaced the divot in the dew soaked grass, placed the golf club against the old stone wall, absorbed the recondite sunlight, the sweet dank smell of the yew hedge and the surrounding trees, the flitting, quacking, chattering life around him, and went in contented.
    Time together was precious. Managing the leisure centre took a lot of Helen’s time. It was open from six in the morning till ten in the evening, seven days a week, offering a multitude of facilities and training courses. Helen was always on call. When she wasn’t at the centre she was usually taking calls at home.
    It was because of this heavy workload that Ben had refrained from burdening her with his concerns about the deaths of Jack Fraser and his wife. But now his investigations had ground to a halt, he was keen to get her point of view. She always brought a pragmatic, down-to-earth approach to situations, compared