Everything. Everything, everything, everything. Never finding out what happened to my father, finding out my father is dead. Throwing away my relationship with Jonathan and never being happy, keeping my relationship with Jonathan and never being happy. Throwing away my career, losing myself in my career, losing the chance to build bridges with Carrie, losing myself, losing my mind . . . and always, always the Manse. I whisper it. “The Manse.”

To his credit, he doesn’t look skeptical. “Ali says there’s some strange tales about it.” I nod again. He scratches his chin with a thumb. “I don’t blame you for not feeling safe there after all of this.”

“I have to go back.”

“You really don’t.”

“I do. I have to. Carrie would think I was running away again.” I dash a hand across one treacherous eye.

“Again?” I shake my head minutely and look out at the mountains. He leaves it a moment, his elbows still on his knees, his eyes and his thoughts elsewhere. “I don’t have the manpower to put an officer on you for protection.”

I nod.

His knee is bouncing as he thinks. “Do me a favor and send me a text when you’re moving back into the Manse. I can make sure any cars in the vicinity swing by from time to time. It’s not much, but . . .” He grimaces.

“Okay. You haven’t had anything back from the lab yet?”

“Not yet. We should have something tomorrow, or the next day. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” He’s still looking at me, his frustration barely bridled, and I can see that he still thinks I’m being deliberately difficult and obtuse. “Bryn,” I say quietly. “It’s not that I don’t want to help. I just don’t know anything that could.”

He holds my gaze for a moment, and then says mildly, “If you say so.” I wish he was in a suit.

My father is dust and bone. That’s all he has been for the last twenty-seven years and that’s all he ever can be. He took an earlier flight back from his trip; when he found his car battery was flat, he bused into Edinburgh and then hopped on a train. He was thinking that he would surprise his little girl; he was thinking of the smile that would light up her face (though perhaps not his wife’s). But they weren’t home, and it was a burglar he surprised instead—a burglar with a crowbar that was used to fatal effect . . .

I won’t think about this. I won’t.

TWENTY

I call Pete from the car park, sheltering in the warmth of the car to escape the rain that threatens. The clouds have completely overtaken the blue now, and there’s a heft to the wind; it means to push and shove rather than play.