She thought again that this was like being in the middle of a terrible nightmare and soon she would wake up and everything would be well. As the arm tightened around her throat, she began to slip into unconsciousness and the events of the evening drifted through her mind, very slowly, like shadows in the fog. She watched the action as if from a great height, as if she was Eleanor filming it in a wide-angle shot for her show.

The five of them had walked along the cliff towards the boat club. Ian had been striding out ahead of them, as if he wanted to pretend they weren’t there, that he was quite alone. Marcus had been strangely silent. Polly had turned to him. ‘Is anything wrong?’ She’d been frightened that he might tell her the relationship was over and that he preferred Eleanor’s mother. Because deep down Polly knew that Eleanor had been telling her the truth about the affair. Behind them Lowrie and Caroline were quiet too, as if Marcus’s mood was contagious.

Then the scene in her head shifted to the boat club, and the tone was quite different. Here everything was music and partying. It had felt as if the whole room was celebrating Eleanor’s death, that Polly was the only person there sad that she’d gone. And then she’d seen the girl dancing. Peerie Lizzie, who couldn’t be a ghost, because Polly had heard her singing. She’d been captured as if in a spotlight, as if the camera had zoomed in on her and all around her the scene was blurred. Polly had followed her out into the night and the fog had come down. For a moment she had thought seeing the girl had been a warning, a premonition. Perhaps Polly would drown too, like Elizabeth Geldard, and her body would be washed up on the shore. And nobody would care. Not even Marcus.

At the worst point of the panic, when she was remembering the night of Eleanor’s disappearance, Polly’s phone had rung and a sensible voice at the other end had come to her rescue. ‘Don’t you dare try to find your way back along the top of the cliff. Not in this weather. Walk back along the track to the boat club and we’ll come along and pick you up in the car. It might take you a while but that’s the safest thing.’

And now, as the life was being squeezed from her and the point of the sharp knife was pricking her skin, she relived her relief as the car drew up. Lowrie’s father George had leaned across and opened the door for her, and she remembered that first time they’d danced together, the strength in his arms as he’d almost swung her off her feet, the tingle of excitement when the music had stopped.