I shake my head. ‘I’ve forgotten. It’s been so long.’

A shooting star suddenly streaks across the blackness overhead and I let out a gasp as it dissolves into the dark. ‘A shooting star! Did you see it?’

He shakes his head. ‘Did you make a wish?’ he asks.

I close my eyes and make one.

‘What did you wish for?’ he asks.

I’m about to answer but Liam suddenly leaps to his feet.

‘What is it?’ I ask, turning to look in the same direction as him.

He shakes his head, a frown appearing between his eyes. ‘I thought I saw something.’

‘What?’ I ask, peering past him. The bonfire throws out a halo of light for about twenty feet but beyond that perimeter it’s pure darkness: a void. I can’t see anything.

He shakes his head and gives a nervous laugh. ‘It was probably just an animal.’

He keeps scanning the beach though, frowning, and I do too, wondering what it could have been. After a while he turns to me, forcing a smile. ‘Shall we go back inside?’ he says.

The bonfire is still going, blazing brightly, but I agree and follow him back to the house, glancing once over my shoulder to scan the beach, wondering what it was that he could have seen. I think back to the shadow of a man I thought I saw yesterday on the beach. I didn’t mention it to Liam at the time, and I don’t want to mention it now as he might wonder why I didn’t say anything yesterday. ‘What do you think you saw?’ I ask him as he opens the front door and ushers me inside.

‘I don’t know,’ he mumbles, his face dark.

Once inside the cottage, Liam locks all the doors and then goes around checking all the windows. He’s acting very spooked and I can feel my own adrenaline starting to pump.

When he’s done, he turns to me and smiles, though it seems a little forced, as though he’s trying not to worry me. ‘I’m sure it was nothing,’ he says. ‘Probably a fox.’