‘I bet you are,’ he said, and an electric pulse ran through her. She wanted to be angry but she had no time to react as he had already started up the engine and was off down the street with a wave and a shout. ‘Come on, I’ve got something to show you!’

She had to work poor Gyps hard to keep up with the figure disappearing into the distance but then gave in and slowed to a canter. It would be better to arrive unruffled than sweaty and red-faced. Away from the town, the sky opened up, a bleached-out, oppressive white-grey, wide over the flat, bare fields, the only colour the rust-brown rippling across distant trees. It made her temples ache to look at the sky. She hadn’t ridden out in this direction for an age and she wondered why. There had not been enough of anything since her mother died. They were suspended, stuck. Despite the melancholy of the autumn landscape, it was good to feel the horse’s flanks. The ache in her thighs from gripping Gyps, the sting on her cheeks and even the endless nothing of the land – it didn’t matter. There was movement, towards something. Above her, a flock of migrant geese swooped, curved and disappeared out to sea.

When she saw him in the distance she almost didn’t want to stop. She could have ridden on until the Wash and the sea and on forever across it. But he was lounging against the bike. He was waiting for her. For her. There was no point denying that this was a thrill. And the very fact of his existence, there in living flesh, was a pulsing beacon to which she was drawn. For a second she was reminded of Arthur, waiting for her by the woods back in the spring, and she gripped the reins hard. She wouldn’t think about him.

‘You look good on your horse,’ he said. ‘Like you belong together.’

She frowned at him. ‘What is it you wanted to show me then? I can’t imagine what there is out here.’

They crossed the road, he walking his motorbike, she leading Gyps, and they took a rough path by the side of a line of trees, flaring red. In the shade of the path, recent rain had turned the fallen leaves into a slippery mush and she was grateful she had her horse to hold on to to stop her sliding.

‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see.’