Someone stepped out from the side of the road directly into her path. She saw them at the last moment as they had been hidden in the shadows beneath the trees. Her eyes registered a confused impression of a tall hooded figure in a long black cloak and the incongruous sight of what looked like a flock of ravens bursting out of the trees above like arrows. Shock and fear paralyzed her for a split second and then she swung the wheel hard and felt the car bump over the edge of the grass verge and start to slide down the bank toward the field below. Everything seemed to be happening so slowly. Powerless to do anything, she waited with sick anticipation for the car to flip over.

They hit something hard. The airbag deployed and engulfed her, deflating almost as soon as it had filled, and leaving Lucy gasping for breath with the seat belt like a vice across her chest. Her blood was pounding in her ears. Her head spun giddily. She felt sick.

Finally she managed to steady her shaking fingers sufficiently to release the seat belt and scramble out of the car. It was canted at a sharp angle down the bank; she half rolled, half fell down to the bottom and found herself sitting in a pile of brambles.

Incongruously her phone chose that moment to ring and she groped in her pocket for it.

“Lucy?” Finn’s voice. “I got your message. I’ve just got back. Is everything okay?”

“No,” Lucy said. Despite the adrenaline pumping through her, she most definitely was not okay.

“I’ve had an accident,” she said, remembering to add, quickly, “I’m fine, shaken but not hurt, but I think the car’s a write-off. I hit a tree and the bonnet’s all crumpled...”

She heard Finn swear. “I’m on my way,” he said. “I’ll call the police.” Then: “Where are you?”

“I’m near Hinton,” Lucy said, “where the road cuts through the beech avenue.”

There was a long silence whilst Finn digested her location and Lucy felt sick all over again at the horrible resonances the situation had with Charlie’s death.

“Finn,” she said, “I’m sorry—”

He cut her off curtly: “I’ll see you in ten minutes. Hold on. I’ll be right there.”

He was gone. Lucy found she was shaking. It was quiet on the road and suddenly she felt desperately lonely. Surely someone would come by, she thought, but there was nothing but silence, the owls calling, the wind in the beeches. Was that a snap of a twig she heard, or a footstep? Had the shadows moved and blurred for a moment? She thought of the cloaked figure pinned in the headlights. She knew she had not imagined it, even if only seconds before she’d been thinking of Charlie MacIntyre driving on this same stretch of road... Someone had been waiting. They had deliberately stepped out in front of her. Were they still there, watching her? How long would it take Finn to get to her? What should she tell him? She couldn’t bear to think how he must be feeling after the last time...