It didn’t take long for the magic to do its job. I’d barely finished the rune when the most godawful reek began to rise. Rotten vegetables with an extraordinary odour of foul fish. It appeared whoever had been sitting here before me had gone one better than cheese-and-onion crisps – they’d been munching on prawn cocktail flavour. Not my snack of choice but it was perfect for this scenario.

The smell grew into a cloud of foul air. My annoying companion choked in mid-snore and opened his eyes. Yep. It was pretty disgusting. I turned my head in his direction and looked as embarrassed as I possibly could. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I have a dodgy tummy and simply the worst case of wind.’

The corners of his mouth turned down and he looked faintly nauseous.

‘Don’t worry,’ I assured him. ‘It’s contagious but it rarely lasts for more than a few hours. By mid afternoon I promise you won’t be able to smell a thing and the odds of you catching it from me aren’t too bad. Five to one at worst.’ I paused. ‘Well, maybe three to one.’

The man’s mouth tightened and he let out a guttural grunt. Then, without a word to me, he grabbed his bag, stood up and walked away to find another seat, preferably in an entirely different carriage.

Way to go, Ivy, I grinned to myself, although the smell I’d created was becoming quite overpowering and I could see a family down the other end of the carriage looking very disturbed. I hastily cancelled out the rune, sure that the nasty odour would disappear quickly. That’s when a familiar head popped up from one of the seats and fixed me with an icy blue glare.

‘Manspreading,’ I called out by way of explanation. ‘It’s a recognised phenomenon but there’s very little you can do to combat it. The easiest way is to get rid of the offender as quickly as possible. The less confrontation the better.’

Winter’s glare only grew. I guessed he was pissed off that I was talking to him directly instead of wholeheartedly throwing myself into our concocted story that we didn’t know each other.

I shrugged. If he really thought that this production company was so thorough that they’d bother tailing a nonentity like me, then he thought too highly of them. No one would go that kind of trouble. All the same, he really didn’t look very happy.

Deciding that this would be the perfect time to put my head down and take a nap, I leaned back into my seat and avoided looking at Winter again. But it was nice to know that he wasn’t far away.

***

Winter might have said that Tomintoul looked pretty but when we finally arrived, it was difficult to make out much of anything at all. It was dark, it was cold, and there weren’t any helpful chauffeurs with limousines to pick me up and take me to where I needed to go. I wasn’t even sure where I was supposed to go, if I were being honest.