She went to check her phone for any news, and was just crouching in the entrance hall, fishing it out of her handbag, when there was a heavy knock at the front door right next to her, making her jump. It would be Gemma, she thought, or even – hope flashed, a silver-minnow twist in her chest – Pete? No, that would be too much to hope for. It must be Gemma, or Leonard. Nobody else would come to the cottage at this time. She glanced at the phone in her hand and noticed that there were notifications from Gemma on the screen: a missed call and a voicemail.

‘Did you just ring me?’ she was starting to say as she opened the door, but it wasn’t Gemma. A short, heavy woman loomed in the narrow porch, like a troll under a bridge. Her hair was thin and lank and her skin pasty, with black circles beneath her eyes, as if she hadn’t seen daylight for years. Disconcertingly, her nose seemed to be plastered across her face, like a boxer’s. A roll-up burned perilously close to her fingers, which made Meredith – somewhat irrationally – wonder if she was a friend of Pete’s. The woman looked at her expectantly, unsmiling, so Meredith didn’t smile either. Belatedly, she remembered her promise to keep the doors locked.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked cautiously. Then: ‘Is this about Pete?’

The woman stared for a moment longer, with a glassy attentiveness. ‘More about you, really.’ Her voice was low and nasal.

For a moment Meredith’s heart leaped with hope. ‘Have you seen him? Where is he? Is he safe?’

The woman leaned against the door frame, her massive shoulder seeming to envelope it. ‘First things first. You don’t recognise me, do you? And why would you? Last time you saw me, I was seven stone. You don’t look so different though. A fair bit more weight yourself, but then that’s middle age for you, isn’t it? The dreaded spread.’

Why was she making small talk? ‘Just tell me what you know about Pete. Are you an old college friend of his?’

The woman laughed, a deep rattling sound coming from her chest. ‘I don’t think he’d consider himself my friend at the moment, no.’

Even then, Meredith didn’t get it. ‘Please. I’m sorry I don’t recognise you. Unless you’ve got something to tell me about Pete – my brother, he’s missing, you see – you’ll have to forgive me, this is a very stressful time for me.’

‘I’ll come in,’ the woman announced, flicking her roll-up into the flowerbed and pushing past Meredith into the house, crushing her back into the coat rack so that she almost fell against the wall. The entrance hall was too small for them both.