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him.’
    Whistler glanced at Fin’s left hand. ‘Never married, then?’
    Fin nodded. ‘I was. For about sixteen years.’
    Whistler’s eyes searched Fin’s, sensing concealment. ‘And no kids?’
    Fin found it hard ever to speak about it without pain. He sighed. ‘We had a wee boy. He died.’
    Whistler held him in his gaze for a long time, and Fin almost found himself wishing he would hug him again. If only just to share the pain, and maybe halve it. But neither man moved, then Whistler lifted his Berserker back on to the floor. ‘So what brings you down to Uig, man? Not just to see me, surely?’
    ‘I’ve got myself a new job, Whistler.’ He hesitated just for a moment. ‘Head of security on the estate.’
    And Whistler flashed him a look so filled with betrayal that Fin very nearly winced. But it passed in a moment. ‘So you’re here to warn me off, then.’
    ‘Seems you really pissed off the landlord.’
    ‘That wee shit Jamie Wooldridge is not his father, let me tell you that. I remember him when his dad used to bring him here as a kid. Snotty wee bastard he was then, too.’
    ‘Well, that snotty wee bastard’s running the estate now, Whistler. Seems his father had a stroke in the spring.’
    This appeared to come as news to Whistler, and his eyes flickered momentarily towards the chessmen.
    ‘He’s got bigger poaching problems than you. But you’ve made it personal. And he’s your landlord, remember. You don’t want to lose your castle.’ Fin drew a deep breath. ‘And I don’t want to be the one to catch you poaching.’
    To Fin’s surprise, Whistler threw back his head and peals of laughter filled with genuine amusement issued from his whiskered face. ‘Catch me, Fin? You?’ He laughed again. ‘Not in a million fucking years!’

CHAPTER FOUR
    The jetty at the fish-processing plant at Miabhaig passed below in a blur, smudges of red that were the Seatrek inflatable powerboats anchored in the bay. And although the waters of Loch Ròg penetrated only a short way along the deep cleft in the land that was Glen Bhaltos, the single-track road followed it in a straight line, flanked by green and pink and brown, broken only by the lichen grey of the gneiss that burst through it.
    Fin saw the shadowed shape of their helicopter sweeping across the land beneath them, vanishing among the cloud shadows that chased and overtook it. The roar of its rotors in his ears was deafening. Ahead lay the golden sands of Uig beach, and the shimmering turquoise of the incoming tide, deceptive in its allure. For even after a long hot summer the waters of the North Atlantic retained their chill.
    To the south, the mountains rose up, dark and ominous, casting their shadows on the land, dominating the horizon even from the air.
    Fin and Gunn sat squeezed together in the back, while Professor Wilson sat up front wearing headphones and chatting to the pilot. As they swept across the beach he removedthem and handed them back to Fin, shouting, ‘He wants to know where to go!’
    Fin guided the pilot the only way he knew, by following the road below. They overflew Ardroil and the gravel pits, banking left to pass above the huddled buildings of the Red River Distillery, and picked up the track that led south towards Cracabhal Lodge. They saw a convoy of three vehicles bumping its way among the potholes between the rise of the mountains. A police Land Rover, a white van, an ambulance. The recovery team making its way as close as it could get to the last resting place of Roddy’s aircraft. They would have a long trek on foot up the valley.
    Everything looked so different from the air. Fin saw Loch Raonasgail in the shadow of Tathabhal and Tarain, and identified Mealaisbhal to the west of it. He pointed, then, leaning forward. ‘Up there, through the valley.’
    The pilot banked steeply to the right and dropped height, and they saw the sprawl of house-sized rock that littered the valley floor, the spoil of primeval ice