‘I am so sorry, I cannae help any more. She was a very good friend to me, you know. My very good friend. I am so sorry, Mister…gentlemen. You have come all this way to see me. But I didnae see what I didnae see.’

Simon swapped a knowing glance with Sanderson. This was a sweet old lady, doing her damnedest, they’d gone almost as far as they could. There was just one more question that maybe needed asking.

‘When and why did Julie come to Foula, Edith? It’s a pretty remote place.’

‘She arrived in the late 1940s, I do believe.’ Edith frowned. ‘Aye. The 1940s. We became friends later, when my mammy died and I inherited the croft next door.’

‘So you don’t know why she emigrated to Foula, of all places, from France?’

‘Noo.’ Edith shook her head. ‘She would never talk about that, so I never asked her. Perhaps there was some family secret. Perhaps she just liked the loneliness and the quiet, just now. Some people do, you know…And now I really must go. My friend is expecting me.’

‘Of course.’

The interview was done. He closed his notebook.

However, as she walked to the exit, Edith slowed, and tilted her head. Engaging with the question.

‘Actually. There is one more thing. One more thing you maybe should know. A wee peculiarity.’

Simon opened the notepad.

‘Yes?’

‘A little while ago…She was being bothered by a young man, a young scientist…She found it most upsetting.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Angus Nairn, he was called.’ The old lady closed her eyes – and opened them once again. ‘That was it. Good Scotsname. Yes. He was bothering her with phone calls, the scientist chappie.’

‘What do you mean, “bothering”?’

‘He wanted to examine her. He said she was a unique case. A Basque, I think. Is that right? I don’t know. Basque maybe. Aye.’

‘And this upset her?’

‘Very much so. Much more than you would expect. She was greeting for a week. That man Nairn truly upset her. There now, my friend is waving.’

Simon pressed on: ‘But Mrs Tait?’

She nodded.

‘When you say this man wanted to use her in a test, what did he mean? What did he want to test?’ Edith calmly replied:

‘Her blood.’

11

David peered over the dripping ferns.

It was a horse. A small, shaggy-maned horse.

‘Pottok,’ said Amy.

The little pony regarded them with an expression of ageing melancholy, then it clobbered away into the woods; mysterious and wild, and ancient and gone.

The relief spread through David’s tensed and aching muscles. He gazed through the trees. The car was surely far down the hill. They were OK. They had escaped. He reached for a rock, to haul himself to his feet.

Amy whispered, fiercely: ‘Wait.’

He felt the jarring fear return.

Amy hissed again. ‘What’s that?’

She was pointing. David squinted, and froze. About five hundred yards away a tall, thin, shadowy figure was treading slowly through the mist, looking this way and that; the drifting fog made it hard to identify, but not impossible.

‘Miguel?’

Her question was surely unnecessary. It was surely Miguel. The black wolf, stalking them through the woods.

He grabbed her hand again. ‘Come on…’

She nodded, saying nothing; together they backed away, slithering into the deeper darkness of the woods; slowly, agonizingly, they retreated and crawled over damp mossy logs, trying not to break the smallest twig or scrunch the tiniest leaf.

David glanced behind but couldn’t be sure what he was witnessing. Was that really Miguel – still hunting them down? The mist shifted in the wind, black figures turned out to be trees, trees bent in the drizzly wind, with a forlorn mewling sound.

He turned and concentrated: searching out a route through the bleak, autumnal maze.

‘Down here -’

David had no idea where he was leading Amy – just away from Miguel. For sixty or seventy minutes they descended; the forest was thick and treacherous. Several times Amy slipped; many times, David felt himself skidding on the leaves and muck. Despite the cold of the dank mountain forests, he was sweating. Amy’s hand was clammy in his. And still he could hear, or he could imagine hearing, the soft, menacing crackle of someone behind them. Or maybe it was just another pottok.

The incline lessened, the black of the crowding wet trees yielded to whiteness – sky and light. They were approaching what looked like a path. An hour of crawling and fear had brought them to civilization.

‘Here…down here.’ He reached for her hand again. They were ducking under an old half-fallen oak. Brambles guarded the route. The rocky path turned and twisted, towards a little valley.

Amy spoke: ‘I know where we are.’

‘Where?’

‘Very near Zugarramurdi.’ She pointed at the clearing mists. ‘A village, it’s just over there, over the hill.’

‘So why are we waiting – let’s do it! We can go to a cafe and -’

‘No. Wait!’ Her voice was sharp, insistent, frightened. ‘He knows these forests…He’ll expect us to go there, to head there. We need…’ She was reaching in her pocket, pulling out her phone. ‘We need to hide,’ she said, ‘until someone can help, can fetch us.’

She clambered a few yards up the damp slope, apparently to improve her signal. He watched her key a number, heard her say Zara and por favor in desperate whispers; he guessed it was her friend the journalist, Zara Garcia. Moments later she pocketed the phone and gave him her attention: ‘OK, she’s coming to the village. It’ll take her half an hour.’

‘But where do we hide…until…?’

‘This way.’

She was already descending with an air of quiet purpose. Bewildered and clumsy, he followed behind, grasping at tree roots to stay upright. Finally the muddy path curved and widened – to reveal a forecourt of natural flagstones. And beyond that, the gasping mouth of a mighty cave.

Amy gestured. ‘The witch’s cave of Zugarramurdi.’

The enormous cavern was open at either end, a natural rock tunnel with a stream running along the bottom – like a trickle of sewer water in an enormous concrete pipe. Dim grey light bounced from the bubbling water, flickering on the elongated cave roof.

‘The what cave?’

Her expression was fixed.

‘The witch’s cave. Zugarramurdi. We can hide here. These cave systems are endless.’

‘Are you sure?’

She didn’t wait to give him an answer; and maybe, David surmised, she was right. Their escape through the woods had been exhausting, he yearned to rest; Amy looked utterly wearied, her face smeared with mud. They needed to hide out for half an hour.

Her careful steps led them along a secondary path that ducked beneath the roof of stone. It fed onto a flat rockshelf overlooking the main cavernous space, the vast echoing tunnel. All around, shadowy recesses ate into the soft white rock, speaking of further tunnels. Amy was correct, they had entered a labyrinth of passages and chambers. Beckoning them deeper inside.

They sat down. The dry warm stone felt like silk after the chilling misery of their escape through the woods.

David rested his head against the rock, exhausted. He closed his eyes. And then he opened them, alert and frightened. He shook the sleepiness from his head and gazed out over the cavern.

‘You said this is the witch’s cave.’

‘Yes.’

‘So, why is it called that?’

She shrugged, bleakly.

‘Quite an alarming story. José told me. He loved telling this story.’

‘And?’

Amy’s smile was replete with tiredness. ‘You always want to know.’

‘I always want to know. Please, tell me something. I don’t want to risk falling asleep.’

‘OK. Well.’ She moued: thinking, and remembering. ‘This cave, and the meadows beyond, this was the akelarre, the place where the Basque witches held their Sabbaths.’