‘I’m just saying,’ he clarified. ‘You’ve never told me what went on with your family back then, and I respect that you don’t want to, but it still twists you up inside even now. It’s easy for me to say, I know, but a lot of people maintain that forgiveness can be liberating.’

‘He’s not looking for forgiveness. I don’t think he even remembers.’

‘But what are you looking for? It’s not him that needs forgiveness. Maybe it’s you who needs to forgive.’

And there it was, the bird, ceased flapping around and temporarily come to rest. Motionless for the moment, but that didn’t mean it could easily be captured, nor that it couldn’t take wing again and resume bouncing off the walls.

Maybe all she needed was to open a window. That wouldn’t be simple either, though.

Drew was right about one thing and wrong about another.

It wasn’t Glen Fallan that Catherine needed to forgive.

Four Words

The wind had picked up in recent days, all the more blustery on the higher ground of Northumberland, where it was claiming the first dry leaves. The colours weren’t yet turned; grass still growing on the roadside verges enough for cutting work to be slowing down the traffic. It felt between seasons, between times: something not quite over, something else not quite begun.

As she drove up to the refuge, she could see Fallan to the side of the house, holding a leaf-blower in one hand like it was a dust-buster. He wore dark green camo trousers and a sleeveless T-shirt, just as he’d been dressed when she first met him. She didn’t think the outside temperature would ever have much bearing on his gardening attire, as he seemed the kind of man for whom hard graft was enough to keep him warm.

She felt nervous almost to the point of nausea at the sight, his very familiarity and an instinctive warmth at seeing him again now adding to the turbulent mix churning inside her. She’d felt less apprehensive the first time she came here, and no more confident of being told the truth.

He didn’t smile when he saw her, but he did stop what he was doing and walk across to greet her. There was warmth in his expression, but worry too, like he was pleased to see her but somehow not happy she was here.

No preamble, she thought. She’d never get through it; it would only make the main event more enormous.

‘I found bank statements,’ she began, and from his expression she could tell he was not even going to attempt to pretend this could mean anything else. ‘My mum’s, from 2007 onwards. She was receiving payments every three or four months from a company called Morningstar. I called the bank and they told me the installments went back twenty years.’