Chapters (82)
- Cover
- Dedication
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
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Suddenly her blood ran cold as she heard a noise come from behind. She spun round, just in time to see a shadowy figure run down the side of the cottage.
‘Stop!’ she shouted, giving chase.
Too late. She arrived in time to see it disappear over the gate. Shivering, Jan returned to the back door. ‘Tinder!’ she shouted one last time as she went in.
Nothing. Not a sound.
NINE
Jan sat on the sofa, wrapped in the duvet from her bed and sipped a hot toddy. The heating was on, but she couldn’t get warm. Even the hot toddy – whisky, water, lemon and honey – wasn’t really helping.
Tinder was missing again and she was really struggling to make sense of what she’d seen. Was there more than one of them? Tinder had chased something through the hedge and then that something had appeared behind her, close to the cottage. Had it intended to go in? She shivered. It was possible. It must have been hiding in the bushes beside the cottage, watching her as she went down the garden after Tinder. Had it hidden there before?
Jan took another sip of her drink and tried to steady her nerves. Were the two of them working together, and what or who were they? The way they’d avoided the sensor light could have been luck or intelligence. Squirrels were renowned for their intelligence when searching for food and could break into quite elaborate squirrel-proof bird feeders. She knew because her parents had problems with squirrels in their garden. But what she’d seen wasn’t a squirrel. Not by a long way. It was much larger and a different shape entirely. When she’d caught sight of it before she’d thought it could have been a fox on its hind legs, but now she discounted that idea completely.
The shadowy form she’d seen had appeared more human, child-like, and the word primate came to mind. Could something have escaped from a zoo and was now living in the woods? There was a zoo about forty miles away; she’d seen it on Google Maps. Were monkeys capable of making that kind of journey and then surviving in the wild in the UK climate? She didn’t know. Some non-native species like parakeets and the American mink had colonized rural areas, she’d read online. But if something similar had happened here then surely Chris would have told her when she’d mentioned it before. He’d been unfazed and vague and said he couldn’t really remember if Camile had said anything about animals visiting the cottage. Perhaps Camile hadn’t told him, or perhaps it hadn’t happened while she’d been living here. Although judging from the track marks, they could have been coming into the garden for some time.