Back in the kitchen, Emily took a pair of scissors from the cutlery drawer. She cut Scott’s Amex card into four neat pieces and dropped them into the bin. Then she unpacked her shopping bags on the countertop. She placed all the ingredients in small bowls, laying them out in the exact order that she would need them, just as Nina had taught her. Stepping back, she checked the clock on the wall. Just over an hour until her parents came home from work. Perfect. Plenty of time.

She would make a nice dinner. She would open the wine. She would spend time with her parents. After that … well, that was where she ran out of ideas. She would have to earn some money at some point. Get a job. Probably not acting, but hopefully something she liked. There was a multitude of possibilities out there, some more achievable than others, but they were there. And she would build a life, all by herself.

But first, before all that could happen, before she could even start cooking, there was something she had to do.

* * *

Grabbing her jacket, she slipped out the back door. The sun was still high in the sky but the afternoon heat had eased considerably with the arrival of a chilly northerly breeze. Autumn was on its way, much to the apparent relief of the British public. According to Peter, the summer had been the hottest on European record, with more consecutive sunny days than ever before. Everyone had enjoyed it, he said, for the first couple of weeks; after that they all started wishing for rain again. There was just no pleasing some people.

Emily wandered down the garden path, ducking under the arch of sweet peas, and pushed open the back gate. All the houses on this side of the street backed onto a chattering stream and a public footpath that ran right from the outermost cottage all the way into town. Turning left, she followed the flowing water past rows of neatly tended yards until she reached the “pooh-stick” bridge, a narrow slab of concrete from which she used to conduct stick-race championships with her friends on her way home from school.

Ducking under green metal railings, Emily scrambled down the bank until she reached an old weathered log with a soft spot in the middle where the wood had been worn smooth. She sat down and stretched out her legs. Then she slipped her phone from her jacket pocket and prised off the case. Plucking out the torn piece of paper she’d stuffed inside earlier that morning, she smoothed it out and read over the string of numbers she’d scrawled on the back.

Something in her stomach slipped and slithered as she entered the numbers into the keypad. This is it, she thought. Once she pushed that call button, there was no going back. Just one tiny movement and it would all be over.

She thought of Scott. She was ashamed, now, of the way she’d thrown herself at him, embarrassed to admit how badly she’d wanted to be saved, to be chosen. She’d been so blind. She’d seen only what she wanted to see and had made him into something he wasn’t. She felt bitter. Betrayed. But a small shred of affection remained.

A slideshow of images flashed, strobe-like, through her head. The way the rising sun had lit his face at the bus stop in La Rochelle. The sound of his voice as she got out of the car. Think carefully about everything I’ve said. The restaurant in London; that boyish smile. The smallest thing can change your life. And just like that, nothing is ever the same again. Her own cookie-smeared face reflected in the gleaming surfaces of his office. I think you can give us something we just wouldn’t get from an agency. And finally, her belly full of ice cream, her heart full of hope, her hand outstretched to accept a key. I knew you’d be perfect. For all of us.

He’d left so many clues, so many white flags. She wondered why it had taken her so long to see them.

A bird wheeled in the sky above her head, and she followed its path, wondering what it might it feel like to fly, to jump up in the air right this minute and take off, to soar among the clouds, over hills and roads, beaches and headlands. If she could fly, she would close her eyes and follow the wind. She would let it take her where it wanted. She might travel over a vast ocean and an expanse of trees, over a canopy so thick and swollen that it appeared to be an extension of the sea. If she looked down, she might see pinpricks of light glittering through the canopy like diamonds in a rock. And if she flew closer, she might see a house, and a woman sitting on a paved outcrop, a glass of crisp flax-colored liquid in her hand.

Perhaps a man would step out of the shadows and join her, a man with brown hair and black eyes. He would be carrying a child.

If Emily dipped down low, she might hear the man speak. I heard her crying, he might say. She had a bad dream. And the woman would reach out, and they would all wrap their arms around each other and press their heads close, the very picture of love. The perfect family.

Emily might then pull back, reluctant to intrude, and circle away into the night sky like Peter Pan. She would ride the currents across yet more trees and water, winding roads and patchwork fields, until she saw bright lights and tall buildings. Spiraling above houses and tower blocks, she might spot another woman, a woman with red hair and unanswered questions, sitting on a different kind of outcrop: a concrete slab overlooking a busy street. This woman would be alone, her arms empty and aching.

Emily looked down at her phone. Her thumb twitched.

Wait. Not yet.

Any minute now, the world would change. Her life and the lives of many others would never be the same again. But right now, everything was deliciously quiet and still, as if someone had hit the pause button.

Just a little longer, she thought. Just one more minute.

From somewhere behind her came the tinkle of cutlery and the rattle of plates. An overlap of voices spilled out of an open window, followed by a burst of laughter. The happy sound of safe, cozy homes.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

SCOTT

WHEN THEY came for him, Scott was upstairs in the guesthouse.

He stood in Emily’s old room, leaning on the frame of the balcony doors and looking out at the vast stretch of ocean. A murmuration of starlings moved on the horizon, wheeling and swinging in ever-changing patterns, a group of thousands contracting and dilating as one. Transfixed, he watched them with raised arms, mimicking their movement with his hands, his thoughts swirling with them, his feeble brain able to process neither the sheer beauty of Mother Nature nor the huge amount of drugs in his system.

About an hour ago, he’d found a shitload of pills in Nina’s bathroom—Valium, he assumed, but they could’ve been anything—and had thrown a whole handful down his throat.

Scott had suffered for years, but he’d never taken any medication. He drank—good god, he drank—and he’d found creative ways to ease his pain, pink, puckered evidence of which could be found all over his body. But medication had always been off-limits, because it would be confirmation that his mental health was in no better state than Nina’s.

But then Emily left him. Or rather, they left each other.

And then he’d had to lie and pretend to his wife that he’d murdered Emily, which was especially awkward because he’d developed some very complicated feelings for his former employee. Emily had made him feel young and exciting, as if he could start his life all over again. She’d reminded him of who he used to be.

But she was gone now, and she’d taken with her any last vestige of hope that he would ever be that person again. He was trapped in this miserable fucking snow globe for the rest of his life, and he could never leave, no matter how hard he tried to break the glass.

Hence the pills. He felt a flush of pleasure as he patted his pocket, feeling the packet he’d stuffed in there for later.

Scott was discovering that he liked Valium a lot, if that’s what it was. He felt wonderfully calm and floaty, with a little fizzy buzz running gently through his bloodstream. He was so relaxed, in fact, that he felt his feet leave the floor. He rose into the air and hovered above the balcony, bobbing gently like a balloon.

As he rose higher, his attention returned to the birds. He wondered if he might actually be a bird. He was something other than human, anyway. His skin was splitting, peeling back in strips and giving way to black feathers, which grew and rose up like spines, poking through his torn flesh. Scott stared as his arms melted away, transformed into enormous black wings that stretched out behind him, and the flock of birds stopped their swinging and swaying to admire him. Turning as one, they flew toward him, coming to claim him as one of their own.

Scott squinted. The birds really were coming. In fact, a really big one had broken away from the flock and was aiming straight for him, growing bigger and bigger and making a peculiar sound, a dreadful thumping and whirring. Scott reached out his hand—take me away, giant bird—but a great wind knocked him backward and whipped at his hair, and he understood then that he was wrong. This was no bird.