‘I’m sorry,’ Anna whispered, wondering if anything of Bren was still left here, whether any wisp of her existence had imprinted itself on these stone walls. ‘I don’t want to go. I don’t.’ If it had only been her, maybe she’d have stayed and waited out the storm. Maybe she’d have trusted that this place would stay standing, no matter what the elements threw at it, as Bren had in 1953, when it must have seemed as if the world outside was ending. But Anna’s life wasn’t just hers anymore. She had the baby to think of.

‘I’ll come back,’ she said. ‘As soon as it’s safe. As soon as I can.’

Anna went upstairs and quickly packed her overnight bag. The last things she put into it were her precious family photograph and three notebooks – Bren’s, her grandmother’s, and the one in which she had been writing down her own recipes. Then she went out into the hallway and pulled on her coat, checking that her utility torch was in her pocket. As she was opening the door there came another almighty sound. It sounded like one mountain shearing against another. She looked up at the cliff behind the houses, but she could see nothing. The wind was stronger than she’d ever felt it, and seemed to be blasting harder by the second. The rain was blinding, sharp, cold slashes through a gloom dark enough to be night.

Anna flicked on her flashlight and hesitated on the doorstep in its blue-white glare, her heart pounding. If the cliff was coming down right now—

‘Anna! AN—!’

The swallowed yell came from the sea path. Anna saw a figure ducking through the slashing waves, almost knocked off its feet by the force of the water. At first she thought it was Robert MacKenzie. She dropped her bag in the doorway and ran out into the storm, grabbing one outstretched arm and pulling whoever it was into the lee of the bothy. Water sloshed around their ankles – the path was flooding anew with each new wave that broke against the wall.

‘Anna,’ the person gasped, and she realized that it was David. She glanced into the darkness over his shoulder, looking for Frank, but there was no sign of him. The rumble came again and Anna looked up, half expecting to see an avalanche of rock and earth rolling towards them.

‘It’s not the cliff,’ David shouted through lips blue with cold. ‘It’s the road. The road’s gone. We can’t get out, not even on foot. And no one can get in to help us.’

Another sound came, another rumble, louder even than before and right over their heads.

‘Oh, God,’ David shouted, horror on his face. ‘That’s the cliff!’