Reg used to be the person I’d come home to. We’d pick up where we’d left off, reading, occasional theatre trips, long walks. But now he was gone and going home meant I’d be left alone with my thoughts.

Like thoughts of Dylan.

I hadn’t looked back after leaving on the day they found Heather on the loch. I’d retrieved my bag, scribbled my number and a note for Dylan, then walked out unnoticed, heading towards the grey farmhouse on the other side of the loch. The occupants of that house were my only hope of getting a lift without going back to the McCluskys. I just couldn’t deal with it all, too many painful memories. And if I’d felt like I was encroaching when I’d arrived, I’d certainly felt it as I’d watched them wrapped up in the drama with Heather. I still had flashbacks to her blue lips, the sight of her being carried from the frozen loch.

When I approached the farmhouse that day, it felt so different from the McCluskys’ lodge. No Christmas lights twinkled in the windows, no festive wreath on the door. The walls of the old house dripped with moss, the garden in front unkempt. It was almost like nobody lived there any more. But there were two vehicles there, a Land Rover and a white van. Two vehicles that could take me to where I needed to be. I’d get a lift to the nearest town, call the hire company to get them to retrieve the car from the road, then take the most direct route back to London.

I was desperate to get away, yet I didn’t know what I was running from. I told myself it was all the drama and the memories. But as time went on, I wondered if was Dylan and how I felt about him. Was I scared of getting close to someone and have them die, like Reg … or abandon me like my parents?

At first, nobody answered the door of the farmhouse when I knocked. But then I heard the sound of a latch being lifted and the door creaked open to reveal a bleary-eyed man with messy red hair peering out at me. He looked to be in his sixties or seventies. ‘What?’ he asked gruffly, a contrast to the welcome I’d had from the McCluskys.

‘I broke down,’ I quickly explained. ‘I wondered if I could get a lift to the nearest town.’ He gave me a hard look. ‘Or use your phone to call a taxi? I can wait on the road.’

‘Phone’s not working.’ He went to close the door but there was a sound from behind him and a woman with a faded black cardigan wrapped around her and painfully gaunt cheeks appeared in the darkness of the hallway.

‘Who is it?’ she asked in a strong Scottish accent.