Lauren enjoys it when her father tells her about all the things her mum used to like. The colour lilac, red apples, sea anemones, blood oranges. This way, she has a sense of how she might have laughed or the tone of her voice. Lauren and her father have made a photo album together, from the box of old pictures in the living room. The room is always open now and catches the sun in the afternoon. Lauren lies on its yellow sofa after school, to read a book and let the light settle on her face. Her father goes to a group at the doctor’s every Wednesday. Sometimes he is very sad afterwards, but on the whole he is happier. Some nights Lauren wears her mother’s jewellery to bed: long necklaces made from moonstone and tiger’s eye. She turns the silver ring on her finger, snuffs out her candles and watches crystals wink in the moonlight.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a book with a full-time job was always going to take a while. Over the past four years, I have been grateful to many people who have helped me through the process.

A big thank-you to my fantastic agent Emma Paterson for her wisdom, belief and shared taste for the macabre. Special thanks to Aitken Alexander.

Many thanks also to my insightful editor Fiona Murphy for her warmth, understanding and shared love of forests. A big thanks to my amazing publicist Alison Barrow, the lovely Antonia Whitton, the eagle-eyed Sophie Wilson, Richenda Todd, Beci Kelly, Fíodhna Ni Ghríofa, Orla King and the rest of the team at Doubleday, who have buoyed me with their enthusiasm.

Thank you to my own lovely authors and colleagues at Sceptre for your support. I feel very lucky.

Thank you to Glynn Powell, from the Scottish Parliament Police Unit, for his insight into a typical missing person’s case. All inaccuracies are squarely my own.

Huge thanks to Lorna and Graham, for letting me stay with them in Sutherland on Halloween, when I had an inkling of an idea for this novel (even though I was keeping it secret!). Thank you to Alice for putting my questions to the residents of Inverness. I will always remember our hut-building and pebble competitions at Newton Point. Even though all the characters are self-consciously fictional, the novel wouldn’t be the same without the best neighbours we could have asked for, the Sawyers and the Richardsons, and our walks around the Loop in Clashmore Wood.

Thanks to Karl Smith for the conversation that started me on the path to writing this book, and to Dominic Esler for suggesting it take a supernatural turn.

A big thank-you to May-Lan Tan for her own Laurens and telling me where to end this novel. Her reading meant the world.