“I’m fine, it’s just . . . it’s not a good time.” I push past him and head down the stairs. How did he come in? Most of the houses round here don’t even have automatic deadlocks on their front doors, but the locksmith installed that when he came.

Jamie hitches his bag onto his shoulder and follows me down the stairs. “I just wanted to apologize,” he says behind me. “For what Fiona said.” I stop in the hallway of the ground floor. “It was horribly insensitive of her. I just . . .” He descends the last step and stands in front of me, then puffs out a breath. “Sorry.”

“Well. Yes. But thank you.” Even apart from the fact that I want him gone, so I can be gone myself, there’s an awkwardness now between us. I can still see a younger him in the cave tea party, though Ben is no longer in the circle. Just Fiona, Jamie and a grinning skeleton that’s now wearing a smart blue suit and has a toy tea cup in one hand with its pinkie crooked sardonically. I feel sick.

Present-day Jamie smiles a little ruefully, then gestures at the alarm panel in the hallway. “All going okay? I spotted the nice security tech outside.”

“I haven’t quite got it linked up yet. The Internet keeps dropping out.” I move toward the front door, not so subtly trying to herd him out. Ordinarily he’s very good at picking up nuances. Not so much today.

“Well. Keep trying. You cannae put a price on safety.” We’re by the front door now. “Listen,” he says, with his hand on the deadlock. “I know you’ve probably had enough of, well, everything today, but there’s something I wanted to tell you. Two things, actually.”

“Jamie, please, it’s really not a—”

“It’ll just take a minute,” he wheedles. “And I think you’ll really want to hear it. Please?”

“Now?” I have a headache, I’m exhausted, I’m starting to feel sick and I really, really have to leave this house.

“Better now than when you’ve packed up and left Scotland for good. That’s what you’re doing, aye?”

He holds my gaze, and I can’t dissemble. I cave. “Come through to the kitchen.”

Once in the kitchen, my gaze falls on the paint swatches on the table. That’s one job I don’t have to think about anymore. Jamie pulls out a chair, and I’m reminded of the first time I ever met him, here in this kitchen, what feels like ages ago but could only have been six weeks or so. Only this time he’s sitting where I was and I’m the one boxed in.

How did he get in? “Did Carrie leave the front door open?”

“Aye, she must have. She ought to be more careful.”