Rachel stared at the note for several minutes. He’s gone abroad. Really? She looked up at the bookshop door. For a moment she imagined him walking through it, and his face and figure were so clear in her mind that she staggered with it, felt the fear like a hand clamped tightly around her throat. She pushed that tremor away, annoyed by the reaction. It had been years now, years, and he hadn’t found her yet. And if he ever did—

‘Are you all right?’ said Cullen’s familiar voice, from the armchair.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just forgot something, that’s all. Can you hold the fort? I’ll be back down in a minute.’

Rachel went upstairs, carrying the letter with her with no real idea of what to do with it. She stood in her kitchen and turned in a circle, the envelope with that name on burning her palm like the flame of a candle. This place was so small. There was nowhere to hide anything, nowhere at all.

Eventually she opened one of the drawers, stuffed the envelope inside and then forced it out of her mind.

Everything was fine. It was only a name, after all, and a forgotten one at that. What damage could it do?

One

Toby had dreamed again of ruin. He awoke, sweating, into darkness. It took a few minutes for him to realize that the screams in his head had been parsed from the searing agony in his leg. He had vaguely thought, in that incongruously naive manner of his that used to drive Sylvie to distraction when they were married, that in leaving behind his old life he had also left the spectre of death behind, too. That morning, lying on his side at the edge of an unfamiliar bed, trying to catch his breath as he waited for the now-familiar pain to subside, he understood that this was something else about which he had been decidedly wrong.

It was that awful woman’s fault. What was her name? Dora McCreedy. She’d been coming out of the house beside his rental cottage when he’d pulled up. It had a ‘For Sale’ sign in its front garden and she’d clearly been viewing it. Isn’t it a lovely area, he’d said, caught up in the cheerfulness of arrival, and Are you thinking of moving in? She’d laughed in a gratingly indulgent way that immediately made Toby wish he’d kept quiet. The woman had gone on to explain that her family was one of the oldest in the area and that she had building developments all over Aberdeenshire.

‘I’ve always had a soft spot for Newton Dunbar, though,’ she’d added. ‘It’s where I’m from and I like to keep my hand in here. It could be such a beautiful, vibrant place, with a little more thought and investment.’

‘Oh – but I think it’s beautiful already,’ Toby had said. ‘Especially the lighthouse.’

She’d glanced back up the village, to where the curious tower was just visible on the hill behind the furthest houses, with an elaborate sigh. ‘That old monstrosity! I do hope you didn’t come here for that.’