A moment later he is on the road and making his way towards the Downs and the Avon campus. It is raining now, the wind coming in off the Atlantic and chucking it on the windscreen like some crazed artist working his paints. He slows for a red light ahead. It is then that he spots a woman walking up the street carrying an umbrella. His eyes flick to the windscreen. Time ticks on. The light seems to be taking an age to turn. Behind him, cars begin to back up. Mahler plays on the radio. It irritates him, this symphony. He’s about to change the station when his eye is drawn by a sudden movement in the rear-view mirror. He checks back. A gust of wind has inverted the spokes of the woman’s umbrella and in that split second he sees a face he hasn’t seen for a long, long time. He feels himself go limp, as if the bones in his body have been plucked out. From somewhere outside of himself he can hear a car horn blaring. He can’t tell whether he is hitting the car horn or whether there is a frustrated driver behind him. Blinking, he checks back in the mirror. The woman is battling with the umbrella now but there is no mistaking those features, the dip of the shoulders, the angular tilt of the head. He pulls in to the side of the road, blindsided now, his eyes on the woman as she walks along the road. He shakes his head and blinks and the woman has gone.

Something is happening, Cullen says to himself, the tension running from him like drain water. I’m seeing things. If I’m not careful I might lose my mind.

Chapter 38

Nevis

It is gone 10.30 by the time Nevis comes off her shift at the chippy and already a frost has begun to settle on the branches of the trees whose leaves are still not out yet. It feels sometimes like everything is in a coma. Back at the flat she takes a shower to rid herself of the smell of frying batter and stale oil but there remains a chill in her bones that can only be chased away by tea. She moves into the hallway and glances briefly at the door to Satnam’s room then turns and makes her way to the kitchen. Putting on the kettle, she suddenly finds herself overtaken by an overwhelming desire to break something.

Perhaps it’s me I want to break?

On an impulse she crosses the living-room floor and goes back into the hallway and stands before the door to Satnam’s room and knocks.