She wasn’t going to accept silence, that much was clear. But I wasn’t about to jump up and thank her for acknowledging my existence. I was enjoying being rude. Made me feel like I was back at university and so full of anger and ambition that it sometimes made me want to tear at my clothes and skin. I was like that, then. Maybe I still am.

I shifted my position a little and managed a tight smile. The action felt unnatural to me, like putting on a dress that used to fit and finding it suddenly uncomfortable and restrictive. The air felt wrong around me. It was as if there was burning metal on the breeze. I didn’t know if I was too hot or too cold; a wet baby beneath a thick woollen sheet.

‘I was just enjoying the quiet,’ I said, aware that my mouth opened more precisely around my words than her’s did. I sounded posher. Richer. Better bred.

‘In a graveyard?’ she asked, looking baffled at the notion. ‘On your own?’

‘Nothing to be scared of in a graveyard,’ I said, in the tone of voice that had always made people think of me as a little fond of my own opinions. ‘There’s nothing here that can hurt you. We’re the only people in history to think of bones as unclean things. There are cultures where people dig up their ancestors every year. Dress them and take them for a celebration. We’re the ones who decided there should be a dividing line between life and death. Other people think of it in shades of grey.’

She nodded. Gave a tight smile. It was a well-meaning gesture, the sort you give a child who has just drawn a picture of an eight-legged cat. ‘That’s nice.’

We both fell to silence. Something buzzed, fatly, by my ear. I felt the tickle of tiny creatures scurrying across my skin. At length, she tucked her elbows in to her sides and drew a circle around me with her eyes. ‘That’s a grave you’re laying on.’

‘I know,’ I said, oddly pleased. ‘Victoria Asbrey. Died in 1717, aged 100, though I have my doubts that they kept proper records. She was probably much younger.’

‘She was a Reiver,’ said Felicity, jerking her chin in the direction of the grave. It was a mannerism I associated with men – hands in their overalls and giving directions with grunts. ‘She was a hundred when she died. Says so on the headstone, look.’

‘A Border Reiver?’ I said, and winced at having asked a silly question. I wanted this woman to know how clever I was. I had always needed to be the brightest in the room.