I asked her how she knew I was here and she said she’d seen me earlier when I was up on the crag. She’d been up there looking for Steve as that’s where they usually meet but he hadn’t turned up. ‘Then I saw you and I knew it was a sign,’ she said. ‘That you were the one person who could help me.’ She said she’d followed me down the crag and through the woods, thinking that I’d be heading for Rowan Isle House, but then saw me settling down under the tree. ‘You looked exhausted,’ she said. ‘So I thought I’d wait a bit, but now I can’t wait any longer. You have to help me, Grace, please say you will.’

I told her that she’d made me feel bad the other day, that the things she’d said to me hurt more than any knife could. She repeated that she was sorry, but she said it so fast it was like she just wanted to shut me up so she could say what she wanted to say.

I was curious to know what she wanted and, if I’m honest, it felt good to have her sitting next to me. After embarrassing myself so badly the other day I thought I’d never see her again. I’d missed her.

So I told her to tell me whatever it was she wanted my help with. She went all quiet, like she’d lost her nerve. She looked down at the ground and started pulling bits of grass up. I got impatient then and told her to spit it out otherwise we’d be here all night.

She nodded her head and said, ‘Okay, okay,’ then she looked up at me and said that her dad had banned her from seeing Steve. He’d arrived home unexpectedly the other evening and caught them in the bedroom. I tried to imagine the look on the vicar’s face, seeing his daughter in the position I’d seen her in. Had he felt like I had? Like he wanted to rip Steve’s throat out? I can’t imagine the vicar getting violent, but then certain things shake us up so much they bring something out in us, a weird force we didn’t know was there before. I was thinking all this as Isobel continued talking. She was going on about how she hated her father and that she wished he was dead.

When she said this, I was shocked. Surely she didn’t mean that? But her face had changed when she said it. She didn’t look like Isobel any more. Her expression was like one I’d seen on a bull when I was little. We’d taken a wrong turn one day and ended up in some strange field. We didn’t see the bull until it was too late. He’d pulled me to safety but not before I’d looked that beast straight in the eye. What I saw in its black eyes was pure brute rage. And I could see the same in Isobel’s. For just a few minutes she’d turned into an animal.