She checked on Clive, who was tentatively dipping his paw into a rock pool, and turned back to gaze out at the water. There was nothing to see apart from the constantly moving water, slowly building waves and screeching seagulls overhead. It was hypnotic to watch everything sway and adapt. Never still. She felt all too often lately that she had stopped moving.

The hairs on her arms stood up. She was not alone.

Clive plodded over, seemingly unaware, and gazed up at her, as though asking if they were done yet. Helen spun around, looked up and down the sand, but could see no one nearby. She looked up at the house again and along the edge of the cliff where the coastal path ran dangerously close to the edge. The occasional dog walker and jogger, tiny little moving shapes, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.

And the house. Always the house.

She shivered despite her coat, stroked Clive on his head and said, “Come on, enough for today.”

She started back towards the stone steps, Clive at her heels, ice still running up her spine. Her eyes scanned the edge of the water, keeping a check on how quickly it would start to engulf the rocks. A glint of light caught her eye. There was something shiny on one of the rocks set back against the cliff wall. She was drawn to it like a magpie. She picked her way over the slippery rocks and around the pools. Clive stayed by the steps, waiting patiently, preserving his energy for the climb back up to the top.

A little silver bicycle bell sat on a rock.

It didn’t look like it had fallen or been washed up. It was clean, sparkly, posed, like it had been placed there.

A cold realisation swept up and out of her stomach. She reached out to pick it up, then withdrew her hand quickly.

She looked around, behind, above her, but she was alone.

A coincidence. Nothing more. A child dropped it when playing in the rock pools maybe.

Nothing to connect it to the photo of the dead girl.

Nothing to connect it to the bicycle that girl was riding the day she died.

*

Clive was panting hard by the time they reached the kitchen door. Helen had practically run back to the house and he was in need of an extended lie down when she let him into the house. He went straight over to his bed and flung himself down in exhaustion.

Helen closed the door behind her, hesitated, then locked it. She stared out at the grey October sky, all signs of the earlier sunshine now dissolved into cloud and impending drizzle.

The silver bicycle bell was heavy in her coat pocket. She should’ve left it where it was. She pulled it out and tossed it onto the table where it rolled and clattered against the fruit bowl.