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“Oh, right, yeah,” Steph said, taking a sip. “I’m from Sheffield originally but I’ve lived in the States for the last nine years.”

“Oh, I love America,” the woman sighed. “Everything seems so much bigger out there.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So what brings someone over from America to the middle of nowhere? You have enough nowhere over on the other side of the ocean if you wanted some seclusion.”

Steph smiled and took another sip of her drink.

“Work.”

The woman nodded and then picked up a newspaper and an old ballpoint. She was halfway through a crossword which she now lay on the counter. Steph couldn’t help peering over.

“Five letter word beginning with T, fourth letter M; the clue’sbetter,” the woman said without looking up.

Steph thought for a second.

“Trump?”

The woman put pen to paper.

“Well, you certainly trumped me with that one; I’ve been on it for ten minutes.”

Steph gave half a smile as the woman began reading the next clue to herself, her lips moving but no words coming out.

“Is this a quiet sort of place?” Steph asked.

The woman looked up momentarily before looking down again.

“I suppose so. People come on walking holidays around here and a few who like to escape the city, but otherwise, it is mostlylocals. It’s not like people would come to stay here for Ben Nevis or Loch Lomond if you get my understanding. Too much of a distance still. They want it on their doorstep.”

“I get you,” Steph replied, swirling her glass slightly. “So it’s quite a cosy village then? Most people know each other?”

“I suppose it is a bit like that, aye,” the woman replied, putting pen to paper once more. “Although, it’s not as if everyone knows everyone else intimately, even if news travels fast enough between people. Par for the course in any small place I suppose.”

“I suppose so,” Steph said. She wasn’t quite sure how to tackle the subject she really wanted to. Death could be a delicate subject. “Sorry, but seeing as you work in a bit of a local hub, I was wondering whether I could ask you something.”

“Local hub?” the woman chuckled, looking over to a couple of older men relaxing in the chairs by the fire. “What was it you wanted to know?”

“I couldn’t help overhearing a couple of people talking about the death of a boy a few weeks ago. I looked it up and supposedly he was attacked by an animal or something?”

The woman pursed her lips slightly. For a moment Steph thought she had hit a dead end, but her face then broke into a sad sigh.

“The Tierney boy, Nathan,” the woman said. “Was found dead a few weeks ago, but supposedly, when they found his body it had been attacked by an animal – the poor wee lad.”

“That’s terrible,” Steph tutted.

“Oh, it’s awful,” the woman continued. “I don’t know the Tierneys personally, but you can only feel for them. Apparently, he had run off after an argument. They had no idea he was even missing until they checked his room to see whether he had gone to clean his teeth. The next thing you know, the police were everywhere looking for him; the whole village was on alert. It’s not usual for something like that to happen here.”

Steph could sense that the woman was starting to settle into her role as a storyteller.

“Who found him?”

“Someone walking their dog discovered his body; a complete mess is what they said.”

The woman shut her eyes and shook her head slightly to emphasise the terribleness of the event.

“Did the police not find anything?” Steph asked, thinking about all the research she had done into the police’s likely theory of events.