The track was wet with the recent downpour, the grass either side of it bent over and glistening with the weight of rain. The wind was still brisk, plucking at Anna’s hair and jacket, scattering the bright yellow petals of the storm-battered gorse before her as she walked. It was the first time she’d been up on the cliff alone, and without Bill’s big paws stampeding ahead and Glynn and David to chat to, it seemed like a foreign landscape. Everywhere was green, from the ocean stretching choppily into the brightening horizon to the earth beneath her feet.

Anna pulled in huge lungfuls of air and pushed on, enjoying the buffet and rush of the damp air, thinking of nothing and everything. It wasn’t until she glanced down and saw that the route she was walking had dwindled into not much more than a rabbit track that Anna realized she must have stepped away from the path. Looking behind her she also saw that she’d come much closer to the cliff – over the edge of it, in fact, and had begun to make her way down a sloping dip that descended the cliff face itself. She stopped, considering her options. Ahead of her the route got steeper, dropping down towards the water, but it didn’t seem impassable. Besides, although it was overgrown and narrow, there clearly was a track that had been trodden by feet other than hers. She thought it probably led around the promontory towards Troup Head and Pennan, and wondered if it were possible to walk all the way around the edge of the cliff. Might there be a walk like the one that led from Crovie to Gardenstown?

She decided to push onwards a little further, enjoying the blast of wind in her face and the new view of the cliff. Crovie had vanished behind her and it felt as if she were teetering on the edge of the world. Anna walked on. The path grew steadily more broken and precipitous. In places she had to descend with one hand braced against the wet brush to find her footing, until finally the path disappeared altogether beneath the tangled weight of a gorse bush that had grown right across it. It was frustrating, given how close she now was to the water – close enough that she could see the waves dashing themselves into white churn against the rock, which here was black rather than red. Anna could see a tiny beach, too, a miniature cove sheltering beneath the overhang, bounded by the verdant growth of a plant she thought was probably sea purslane.

Looking back up the way she had come, it occurred to Anna that she had descended much further and on far steeper a route than she had realized as she’d walked.