Afterwards, I faced the hills behind the house. They looked like – friends. Great brooding giant guards. If anyone came by that Jim didn’t like, they’d just stretch up some more, do a silent sideswipe and fling the invader a few miles away. They were his hills.

I walked to the river and knelt down. My fingers looked swollen in the water – pale, uncooked sausages. I picked up a rock, smooth and slick, and balanced it on top of another one. Fraser was such a wanker, trying to freak me out. What the hell was his problem?

A loud slosh behind me. Jim was tipping the rainwater out of the pan. I stood up and he looked at my legs, a long, slow smile coming on one side of his face. Mud was stuck to my knees. I stomped back, flicked river water into his eyes, and carried on past him into the house.

The coffee jar was out on the table.

‘Do you want some breakfast?’ he said behind me.

I thought about staying here all day, pinning him down underneath the duvet. He’d totally let me. And I thought of Lottie, guiltily. ‘I should get home.’

He looked at me, tugging his bottom lip into his teeth a bit.

‘You’ve got no reception. My mum will be – she’ll think I’ve drowned in a ditch.’

Jim smiled. ‘I’ll run you back, then. Give us a minute.’

He went outside and I looked at his books on the big shelves, my head on one side to read the titles. A stack of papers, individually folded, sat on top of some hardbacks. More drawings. I pulled one out. It was more of the same, except – not quite. Part of a human skeleton – pelvis, curved spine, ribcage – with feathered wings. It was beautiful, eerie, and a bit strange for someone who said they didn’t draw people. My eyes travelled ahead, and – I saw them, at the end of the shelf.

My keys.

They were definitely mine. Broadly toothed and silver, the little green-rimmed plastic keyring, the perfectly coiling writing of the cottage address. I filed the paper away and picked them up, thinking of the feather on my pillow. My heart made a sound like a lock turning.

Jim stopped when he saw them dangling from my forefinger. ‘Meant to give them back to you.’

I didn’t say anything.

‘Those are yours, right?’

I looked at them.

‘Reckon maybe on – that first night? The other time you were in my bed,’ he said, a little slyness sliding in.

‘Yeah,’ I said, in a voice not quite my own.

Jim walked to the sink, his back to me. He’d had them all this time. That was weird.

He wiped his hands on his jeans and reached into his pocket, his own keys making a muffled jingle. ‘Shall we, then?’

I got into the jeep. Jim had disappeared round the corner of the house. He’d had my keys for ages. Why hadn’t he returned them? He suddenly loomed in the wing mirror and I almost had a panic attack. There was a chainsaw in his hands.