Fanny must have flown around the building because within a few minutes, Billy’s cheeky face appeared at the parapet. ‘Miss Gillies!’ he cried down. ‘You called?’

She chuckled, looking back up at him with her hands on her hips. ‘Thanks, Billy. Have you the rope?’

‘Aye!’

‘Then if you could loop it round the nearest chimney and throw both ends down to me.’

There was a brief pause. ‘Is that all? You don’t want me to shin down? I reckon I could!’

‘Just throw it, thanks, Billy! I don’t want to have to rescue you too!’

She heard his scoffing laughter but a few moments later, the rope ends came dangling down like snakes.

‘Effie, are you entirely sure about this?’ Fanny asked her worriedly as she tied the ropes into the slide and grip knots favoured back home. She felt a rush of thrill to be doing again the thing she loved – and had missed so much.

Effie just winked at her. ‘This is an adventure, Fanny.’ Pulling sharply on the rope a few times, she got a foot up to the windowsill on the window beside the door and, without a moment’s hesitation, began to calmly ‘walk’ barefoot up the wall.

Fanny gasped again, her hands pressed to her mouth as Effie moved seemingly effortlessly up the vertical stone face of the house. She passed the jambs of the front door, then began scaling to the bedroom windows on the second floor. A movement inside one of them briefly caught her eye but she didn’t look in, needing all her concentration on her destination, even if it was an easy climb.

The windows were trimmed with stone frames that gave her enough of a foothold to support herself as she drew level with the bottom of the pediment and placed her forearm along the ledge. It wasn’t an ideal position; the rope still lay somewhat to the right of where the cat was huddled.

‘Now you’re quite sure you don’t need my help there, Miss Gillies?’

She looked up to find Billy grinning at her from his position on the roof, but she could see a flicker of concern in his eyes. ‘I might if this was a sheep and not a cat, but I think I’ll be fine thanks, Billy.’

‘That’s a shame then, but we’ve definitely not had any sheep stranded up here, as far as I’m aware.’