I held my wine glass up to my chin and breathed in the sweet gloomy stickiness. A taste the same colour as the shadows. The bottom corner of the garden blurred into woodland that led all the way down to the loch. Pine trees were massed in front of me, not wanting to let me pass. I wandered a bit closer.

A tiny noise to my left. Something between a soft click and a rustle. This garden would do what an old house did, creak and bend and whine. I took a step forward, onto mud and sticks, and listened.

The wind fluttered against my neck. The sky had slipped into a sort of night without my noticing. I dipped my finger in the wine, put it in my mouth, and as it came out there was the noise again, a few metres ahead of me in the trees. Rustle-click. A drop of wine loosened from my finger.

Maybe it was a pine marten. Maybe my ankles were about to get ripped off by a two-tone rat. I started to feel like I was being coated in the darkness, layer after layer patiently obliterating the light from my back, my neck. Or maybe it was a person. A local. I fingered the feather in my pocket. That guy—

‘You’re not spooked by the dark, are you?’

I practically fell over in fright. ‘Fucking … fuck.’

Adam was a few paces away from me, further up the slope. My neck feeling weirdly heavy, I stalked past him towards the conservatory and stood with my back to it. Held my thumb up to the moon, closed an eye and angled my hand so that it sat perfectly on top.

He came and stood next to me, and leant in a little. ‘You smell nice.’ He hadn’t even inhaled.

I’d sweated rain all day. Rain and guilt. ‘I really don’t.’

A faint, far-too-confident smile hung on him. Jesus. Well, it was clear as a bell now. He wanted to finish what he’d started two Christmasses ago down at ours, outside the downstairs toilet – a hand on my arse and his tongue making slug trails on my ear lobe while Lottie and the others bawled out ‘Fairytale of New York’ in the living room. I’d had an experimental, Smarties-coloured mixture of party booze and a pill and would have probably happily licked the banister. Bev had come out, hooting, and he’d been off me, quick as a flash.

He seemed unruffled and looked out towards the loch. ‘It’ll be fun having you up here.’

I drained my wine, clumps of sediment on my tongue. Bev and Lottie’s voices bubbled away behind us.

He spoke quietly. ‘Feel free to, you know, drop in, if you’re at a loose end.’

‘What for?’ The only loose end I’d want would be a generous noose for me to shove my head into.

Adam still didn’t face me. ‘Whatever you like.’

He made me want to scratch at his mouth, graze him. ‘Yeah.’ I studied my nails. ‘I don’t think I will.’