All she wanted to do was find that connection that she’d felt so keenly at Castlerigg. It had been both real and unreal, physical and heady, spiritual and elemental. She’d never felt anything like it before, even when her father taught her how to explore it. Connection to things other than oneself was a fundamental part of her learning, and she’d practised so many times in fields and woods with foxes, birds and insects. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Most of the time she ended up dismissing it as all a pile of crap and she gave up, stomping home to lie on her bed, branding herself a failure. But at the stones, when he looked at her: she’d felt it then.

She slammed on the brakes. A couple crossed the road, laughing and joking with one another, as if oblivious to the fact that she could have fucking killed them both. She flung her arms up as if to say, ‘what the hell were you both thinking?’ They stopped giggling and slowly the realisation of what had just occurred hit them. But it wasn’t the anger that coursed through Daphne’s body that arrested her and made her lower her arms and slowly drive around them. It was the face of the male.

It was Callum. He was with a girl.

She drove away, peering in her rear-view mirror to check that he hadn’t recognised her. Of course he wouldn’t: recognition is 99 per cent in the eyes, and hers were covered, thank God. She watched, and saw him looking at her vehicle as she pulled away. The girl put her hand in his and pulled him away from the road.

They were close.

Her heart raced as she reached the main road and pulled onto it. As she drove back home to the farm, she remembered the tiny details of what he was wearing, what colour his hair was (she hadn’t seen it that clearly at dawn, near the stones), what he wore, how his clothes fell over his body and his hands. Her skin began to tingle again, but this time it was tinged with pain.

She could be a relative.

Unlikely.

She could be a friend.

She’d soon find out.

Chapter 29

‘It doesn’t necessarily follow that what happened to Mary was directly linked to her lifestyle.’

Joe fended off a thousand questions from his wife.

‘I would have thought that was perfectly obvious.’

‘You’re doing what anyone who reads gossip is doing: jumping to conclusions. There’s no evidence whatsoever that Mary had got herself into something that was dangerous or couldn’t handle. That’s not what it’s about, Annie, for God’s sake.’

‘How can you use that word when you don’t even believe in God?’

‘It’s a generic term for all deities.’

‘Don’t patronise me!’