The Black Loch

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The sun set some time ago. Although it is not yet dark enough, somehow, for murder.

The east side of the island lies in dusky purple shadow, with the rising of the moon still hours away. But what little light remains in the sky is reflected pale and pink upon the unusually still waters of An Loch Dubh, making silhouettes of the man and woman as they run from the house. For more than an hour, only the single lit pane of a downstairs window has broken the twilight, seeming to flicker feebly, like a candle, in its fight against the smothering half-light.

It burns still as the figures flee the hulking shadow of the house that stands black against the sky. And the silence of the night is breached only by the sigh of the sea loch surging between headlands to drown the tiny sandy beach below at high tide.

Out across the clifftops they run, oblivious to the phosphorescence of salt water breaking white against the rocks thirty feet beneath them, the sound of it masking the shouted words exchanged. Until he reaches her with longer strides and catches her arm, turning her towards him. Then the shrillness of her voice rises into the night. Words lost, but meaning clear. He takes her other arm and shakes her. She tears it free and swings an open palm towards his face. The force of its impact is discernible in the sudden turn of his head.

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