During her first years of university, Jude had had relationships: lovely, terrible, brief, occasional. It had always been clear that they weren’t going to amount to anything. There had been a fallow patch when all she thought about was work. Then, three years ago, she had met Nat on a blind date and it was as if she’d been waiting for him: steady, trusting and trustworthy. More than that, he was funny and straightforwardly affectionate and he didn’t irritate her, which lots of people did. He was always attentive. Even sitting in Liam’s car, she could feel the way Nat would stroke her hair, run his hands under her shirt. She could picture a future with him.

She was driving along a small road now, through a beech wood where some trees stood bare of leaves and others shone orange and gold. Then out again into a bare landscape, huge sky and marshes. Her feeling of unreality grew.

She slowed, glancing frequently at the map on her phone, which was taking her down an even smaller lane, muddy and potholed, past a field edged with muddy piles of sugar beet. In the distance a tractor like a toy was moving across the muddy earth. She drove through a little village of flinty houses with a post office, a pub and a tiny supermarket. It was twenty past two. A signpost pointed straight on for Ixley, where she was to meet Liam that evening, but she turned left, up a hill; then left again down a short driveway.

Springs Cottage.

Jude switched off the ignition but didn’t get out of the car straightaway. She rested her forehead against the side window and waited. The cottage was small, square, painted white, with a gray slate roof and a chimney that was missing a few bricks at its crown. A rose bush growing up the wall still had a few tenacious yellow flowers. There was an enormous chestnut tree at the side of the cottage, its branches heavy with a mess of twiggy nests. Jude saw the dark shapes of rooks and then heard their harsh calls.

She opened the door and cold air rushed at her. The wind was getting up, and leaves flurried along the ground at her feet.

She collected her backpack and Liam’s wallet and went toward the cottage. Sure enough, there was a key hanging on a nail in the porch, out of sight behind a wooden beam. Stepping inside, she dropped her backpack in the little hall. It was cold and smelled musty and unused. Probably people came here in the summer when they could go for long walks, swim in the sea which must be just a mile or so away, not in early November when everything was rain and mud and harsh winds sweeping in from the east.