He smiled then turned his attention back to my jeans, yanking them down as his chin brushed my knickers. He kissed the lace top of my knickers, slowly and surely. I squirmed in frustration and he laughed against my skin. Then he dipped his head lower, pushing my legs open slightly. I felt his breath through the cotton of my knickers on the most sensitive part of me and dug my fingers into his hair, tilting my hips up towards him.

But then he moved his head away, looking up at me again.

‘Screw this,’ I said.

I quickly wriggled out of my knickers and unhooked my bra as he bit his lip, then I pulled him up to me, unzipped his jeans and looked him in the eye. ‘Now.’

An hour later, we lay together on his sofa, arms wrapped around each other beneath a thick fur blanket. Dylan was looking at the leather notepad Reg had got me, which had fallen from my pocket, and was reading my notes about all the animals I’d filmed since arriving in Scotland.

‘Interesting,’ he said, leaning over and grabbing a pencil. ‘I think it’s just missing one thing.’

He started sketching a bird opposite the first page, a ptarmigan.

‘You draw too,’ I murmured after he finished it. ‘Multitalented.’

‘I’d say you’re the multitalented one,’ he said, tracing his fingers down my arm. He placed the notepad down and pulled me on top of him. ‘I think you and I are alike,’ he said. ‘Not just because we’re both multitalented either.’

I thought of what his mother had told me about him needing to be forgiven. We’d both done things that needed forgiving. I got the feeling there was more to it than that for him too, more secrets burrowed within … just like me. Secrets we needed to forget.

He moved down my body. I felt his lips on my neck, my collarbone. He gazed up at me and I saw the message in his dark eyes: help me forget. I’d done the same for so many years, strange men in dark cold tents, seeking selective amnesia through the small sparks of pleasure their touch brought.

As his lips moved down towards my hips, I lay back and looked up at the vast wooden ceiling, smelt the heady scent of sawdust, of whisky and eucalyptus. When his lips and tongue found my most sensitive part, I let out a gasp, letting him widen my legs. As sensations built and built at the point where his tongue probed my skin, I closed my eyes, focusing on it until the sensations burst, muscles spasming.

He moved up me, kissing my belly button, each rib.

Then a scream rang out from outside.

We both froze.

Then another.