The groundskeeper’s shed is dark, thick earth-smelling dark and she’s not about to turn on the light, but she prepared for this. Two steps forward, face left, five steps, and her outstretched hands hit the stack of tools propped against the wall.

The hoe is at the far right of the stack, where she left it yesterday. Spades and shovels are too heavy and too clumsy, anything short-handled would mean getting too close, but one hoe had a blade so sharp it almost split her fingertip like ripe fruit. Gemma came in and saw her choosing, but Becca’s not worried about her. This isn’t balconette bras and low-carb foods; this is a thousand miles outside what Gemma’s mind can reach.

She sets branches parting like swinging doors in front of her, to leave her path clear. In the centre of the glade she practises, swinging the hoe up behind her head and down; getting used to the heft of it, the reach. The gloves mean she needs to hold it extra tight, to stop her fingers sliding. The swish of it is fast and strong and satisfying. Low under the trees, here and there, luminous eyes watch her, curious.

One more go because it feels good, and Becca stops: she doesn’t want her arms to get tired. She spins the hoe between her palms and listens. Only the comfortable, familiar sounds of the night: her own breathing, the undergrowth-rustles of small things about their business. He’s nowhere near.

He’ll come from the back of the grounds. The path, under arching branches, is an endless black cave flecked with snippets of white light. She pictures different guys stepping out of it: Andrew, Seamus, Graham. She pictures, carefully and methodically, everything that needs to come after that.

The hoe has stopped spinning between her hands. She hears its swish again, and this time the splintering thud and squelch at the end.

Her whole body would love it to be James Gillen – the thought opens her mouth in almost a smile – but that at least she knows Selena would never. She hopes it’s Andrew Moore.

Becca feels lucky, so lucky she could lift right off the ground and somersault amid the whirling stars, to have been chosen for this. The beauty of the glade turns her heart over. All the clearing is lavish with every glory it can call up; the air is drenched with moonlight and the sweetness of hyacinths, owls sing like nightingales and hares dance and the cypresses are pearled in silver and lavender, for the celebration.

In the crosshatched dark away down the path, something cracks. The cypresses catch one deep breath and shiver on tiptoe. He’s here.