The drive was slow. 56 wasn’t built for motorways. They stuck to the A-roads, the old roads, the roads that curved with the land instead of cutting through it. The Land Rover groaned up Shap Fell, its heater blowing a faint whisper of warmth. At a layby in the Trossachs, Elias got out and checked the oil himself, refusing Mina’s help. His fingers trembled, but the dipstick came out clean.

“Ready?” she asked.

On his workshop wall hung a faded photograph: a young man in a khaki shirt, standing beside the same Land Rover in 1968. Behind them, a mountain pass wound up into a razor ridge. The Storr , on the Isle of Skye. He’d driven 56 there once, after a breakup that felt like the end of the world. They’d climbed to the top together, man and machine, and he’d promised himself: one day, he’d come back.

Elias turned back to look at 56. The Land Rover sat idling, steam rising from its bonnet, mud caked to its wheel arches. A tiny wisp of smoke curled from its oil filler cap. It looked exhausted. It looked triumphant.