Lissa prepared herself for not being able to sleep. She was in a strange bed a very long way from home, cast into exile. She had a million new things to do tomorrow: a new case list to take on, a new set of worries as well as the ongoing ones—everything circling in her brain. She was never going to be able to sleep, everything was so strange and odd: the sweet-smelling air, the comforting crackle of the whisky wood in the fire, the faint tinkling of the stream in the bottom of the garden . . .

When she woke up nine and a half hours later, she hadn’t even taken her contact lenses out.

SHE WAS TOO late to make breakfast or do anything, in her surprise, other than jump into the shower and, in her haste, use some of the old shampoo already there. It smelled of almonds.

She threw on her uniform, put on her glasses, tied up her damp hair. Of course there wouldn’t be any food; she was an idiot for not having planned all of this yesterday. Automatically she went to open the fridge door anyway—then stopped, as her hand didn’t find the handle. That was odd. She tried it again, then smiled to herself. The door opened on the other side. It was a left-handed fridge. She supposed it wasn’t that strange in the scheme of things—one in ten—but she was left-handed too and had always considered such a thing the height of luxury. If he had a left-handed fridge, he would have left-handed scissors too! And can opener! It was oddly thrilling. She glanced around, but there wasn’t a picture of him—or anyone, or anything, in fact—up anywhere in the cozy little sitting room. Typical man, she thought. She had to email him; she glanced at her watch. Nope. No time. Dammit, and he’d have had Zlobdan’s mob this morning, whom she’d come up against before. Could always do with a bit of prior warning. She glanced at her phone; there was a long message from him telling her what she should be doing.

Finding a half-empty tin of dry cornflakes at the back of the cupboard, she grabbed a handful and looked at the message crossly. Well, wasn’t he organized. Show-off. There was quite a lot to it. She’d look at it later.

LISSA SQUINTED AT the address, but it wasn’t making much more sense than it did before. She was parked on a narrow single-lane track, having a fight with the GPS and having lost her phone connection, which meant she couldn’t read the email Cormac had sent her that presumably explained exactly what to do and where she was meant to be going to meet this patient. Oddly this was making her cross with Cormac rather than, for example, herself.