For the oddest moment as she turned it she wondered . . . No, of course not. She was being ridiculous. And the kitchen was just as she had left it—was it really only twenty-four hours ago? Yes. Twenty-four hours before, one cup and one plate all by themselves neatly on the drying rack. Nothing had moved; nobody had been there. It was just her, alone, again. Her phone pinged. She couldn’t help grabbing at it. Her mum.

She smiled. I’ll call you later, she texted, and made a promise to herself to do so and invite her mum up, invite Kim-Ange. Everyone should get a chance to enjoy the cottage before she had to leave.

Lissa left her bag as it stood, went to the sink, and threw that icy water on her face and drank a large glassful of it. Okay. She was straight back to work today; she was due at the surgery in half an hour. Time to wrap things up. She could send . . . well, a formal email to Cormac she supposed. Signing off on all the patients so ideally they could slip seamlessly back into their own lives, pretending nothing had happened, pretending she hadn’t changed . . . And one day, Scotland would be just a distant dream, a memory that she told her children in some faraway future, where she had a place of her own and a partner and a grown-up life. “Once upon a time,” she would say, “I visited a magical land . . .”

She stopped suddenly, her heart in her throat. She was standing in front of the large window at the back of the kitchen, and out in the garden, there was a dark shape.

She took in a deep breath, fighting her panic response. This was Scotland, for God’s sake, not central London. The biggest crime here was someone crashing into the bus shelter when they’d had a few.

She took another deep breath, then glanced around for something to use as a weapon. Perhaps someone had thought the house was empty or abandoned.

The dark shape was on the lawn, crouching. She stepped forward, then turned around, looking for a knife. She could find only a bread knife. She wasn’t sure how effective that would be, but she took it anyway, then found herself ducking and crawling to the door at the back of the house. The figure was stock-still. Was it staring at the house? Had it seen her?

Heart palpitating, she stood by the back door, closed her eyes, took another deep breath, remembered that she was meant to be a braver person these days, whether it felt like it or not—and flung open the door.

Chapter 82

“He-hello?”

Her voice was trembly and weak. The figure didn’t move. Lissa edged forward a little bit, then a little bit more. It was like a statue.

She moved cautiously to the end of the garden. “Hello?”