One

She stopped, and listened. At first, all she could hear was the wind against the windows. Then, like a faint voice beyond the sound of the rain, she heard the car again.

It seemed as if the house, too, were holding its breath in the darkness, waiting. Anna edged out of the bedroom and looked over the banister, into the gloom of the rooms below. It was one o’clock in the morning. She could see nothing except the phone on the hall table, the red light winking in the darkness. Message waiting.

She watched the light for a few seconds before turning away, knowing that there would be no more silent messages now; no more subdued click on the phone as it was put down—for, above the rain, the sound was unmistakable. Somewhere up the valley, up the thin uphill track to the road, a car was blowing its horn. He had given up his long strategy of silence at last and was bearing down, through another sleepless night, to find her. Only this time it was not a nightmare. It was real. The waiting was over.

She took several deep breaths, trying to force a clear thought.

She could get downstairs in thirty seconds. Out the back door … and where? There was nothing but treeless downland behind the house. A long sweep of open field dropping down to the beach, with no other shelter, no other houses, not even a hedgerow. She could hear the sea a quarter of a mile away, sucking on the shelves of pebbles, grinding the beach to gravel. It was a filthy spring night. A high tide.

She ran to the window, and raised the blind.

For a moment, the night divided itself neatly into two: the pitch black of the hill, the lesser tone of the sky. She looked to the right, up the track. It was then that she saw the car’s headlights.

He must have opened the gate up beside the road and come down a mile, slowly dropping through the long valley. At night, the drive down to the cottage was a disorientating journey, like driving through fog—featureless, mesmerizing—the road a white line disappearing into the middle distance, like dropping off the end of the world. But that was not deterring him. Nothing deterred him.

Don’t just stand here! Run.

Nowhere to run to. Too late, her heart screwed to a point of pain.

At the same moment, she heard the car come into the yard outside, heard the axle scrape the uneven surface. Heard the brakes. Too late, too damned late. She froze, listening for the sound of a door opening. For his fist slamming on the door. For his voice shouting her name. But all she could hear was the car’s engine: a battered, rumbling choke under the wind from the sea.

You should have run before now, she thought desperately. Last week. Last month, when the calls began again. Trusted your instinct then. You should have run …

In a sudden flurry of movement, she pulled the Victorian chest of drawers across the bedroom door. The loose carpet wrinkled under the heavy wooden feet. She hauled on the large mahogany cabinet, the muscles in her arms and shoulders straining with effort. With this obstruction in place, she stood in the centre of the room, eyes closed, waiting for the sound of her name called above the rain.

One minute—the car engine below drumming.

Two minutes.

She opened her eyes and inched back to the window, far to one side of it. Holding her breath, she looked for him, for his shadow, or his face. The headlights below her sliced the yard. She moved further around until she could see the front of the car. It was an old-fashioned shape, a little grumbling tub of a car with a snub-nosed bonnet. Not the car he used to have. Some other car. Suddenly, the driver’s door opened.

Anna was surprised to find herself still at the window. Even the instinct to shift backwards was paralysed.

A girl got out of the car.

Just a girl.

Her breath snagged in surprise. The girl was tall, with long fair hair. A complete stranger. She wore an old-fashioned paisley frock that reached her ankles. Anna gripped the window sill, confused now, frowning, silently shaking her head. The girl was young … seventeen, perhaps? Eighteen? Someone’s tidy daughter, looking neat and careful as she stood motionless in the drenching rain, her hair tied in a single straight plait that clung to her back. She had a round, white face, bland and moonlike, and she was not even looking at the house.

Anna peered back at the car. She could see a shadow in the other seat, a passenger, the outline of a head and shoulders. They, too, seemed to be looking at something, just as the girl was looking, not at the house but ahead of the car.

‘Get out, then,’ Anna whispered. ‘Why don’t you get out? What are you waiting for?’

She glanced around fearfully at the barrier by her door; when she looked back, the girl was nowhere to be seen. The driver’s door remained open, and the downpour was streaming in. The door hung crookedly on its hinge, showing a turquoise lining that could have been leather. The passenger had not stirred.

No knock.

No fist, no voice.

She leaned forward. Pain in her throat. Constriction. Tension. She could see part of the passenger’s shoulder now, the upper curve of the arm. And a coat … a pink coat.

Slowly, with difficulty, she edged out of the bedroom door. With the lights still off, she almost crawled downstairs, hand over hand along each tread. She went down the hall, out into the kitchen. She pressed her ear to the outer door that led through to the old scullery.

Nothing … no sound except the rain dripping from the leaky guttering on to the concrete path outside.

Anna went back through the kitchen, trying to discern shapes in the dark, feeling her way through to the sitting room. Here, the curtains were open a little. She pulled the nearest one back.

There was a sudden movement in the corner of her eye. The gate to the field was open, swinging. The girl was standing at the field gate, saturated by the storm, her dress clinging to her body, her arms hanging loosely at her sides.

Anna stared at her a moment, then back to the car. She leaned closer to the window.

It was a woman in the passenger seat.

She went to the front door, wrenched it open, gasped at the force of the rain.

‘You!’ she shouted.

The girl didn’t look at her, only towards the hill and the sea.

‘What do you want?’ Anna yelled.

She looked back to the car.

Grabbing a coat from the hall rack, Anna ran out into the rain, through the beam of the headlights, towards the girl. She drew level with her, and caught her by the arm. Both of them were blasted by the wind’s force, out here beyond the shelter of the house. The girl turned to her with an astonishing expression, one of perfect calm.

‘This is my house,’ Anna said. ‘You’re soaked, for God’s sake. What do you want?’

The girl shook her head.

Anna raised her voice. ‘What is it? Who are you?’

The girl glanced at the car.

‘You’ve come the wrong way,’ Anna said. The rain dripped from the hood of the coat and into her eyes. She wiped it away. ‘Have you had an accident, or something?’ she persisted. ‘Do you know that you’re at the wrong house?’

She recognized relief flowing through her, and a thought forming itself into two words. Not him. The thundering relief. Oh God. It’s not him.

‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘What do you want? A phone?’

The girl followed her. They reached the door. ‘Do you want to close your car door? Does your passenger want to come in?’

The girl stepped past her, into the hall. Anna switched on the light and, to her amazement, the girl sat down on the hall chair, while the water ran off her clothes and pooled on the stone-flagged floor.

‘Do you want the phone? Is it an emergency?’ Anna repeated.

The girl shook her head again.

‘Well, look …’ Anna began. She hesitated. The girl’s utter lack of response was unnerving. ‘You should at least turn off your car engine, and shut the door. Your car seats will be soaked.’

Nothing. The girl stared down at her hands, curved one upon the other in her lap.

‘Hellfire,’ Anna muttered.

She ran back out to the car, through the rain and the twin piercing beams of the headlights. She ran around to the driver’s side, turned off the engine, pulled the keys from the ignition, turned off the lights.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked the passenger. ‘Come into the house.’

It was an old woman, seventy-five. Maybe eighty.

In the shadows, Anna could make out a shock of uncombed, unruly white hair. The woman wore a thick pink tweed jacket, and there was a pair of spectacles hanging on a chain around her neck, the metal and glass glistening in the dark. Her eyes were open, and her posture rigid.

Anna put out her hand. She extended her fingers, so that only her fingertips brushed the face before her.

The woman was unbelievably cold.