Where Have All the Boys Gone?
Jenny Colgan

For my beloved boys, Mr and Baby B.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

There is a very small envelope of seduction time available between the stages ‘just pissed enough’ and ‘disastrously over-pissed’, and suddenly, Katie wasn’t sure she was going to make it.

This man sitting in front of her wore little heels on his shoes, she remembered, swaying slightly. She’d noticed under the chippy, awkwardly tiny bar table in this stupid new bar called Square Root. OK, he was her first date in four months, and she had her best bra on, but still, she really ought to have paid more attention to the shoes…it was just, it had been a difficult week.

It had started on Sunday. Louise was still on her international bang-athon, leaving her and Olivia, who came around on Sundays to avoid getting inky fingerprints on her pristine white sofa, studiously reading the papers, watching EastEnders and ignoring the obvious sounds of sexual intercourse coming from the spare bedroom.

‘How come Kat Slater is really fat and covered in slap and millions of men are in love with her?’ Katie had asked.

There was a particularly vigorous grunting noise.

‘Umm,’ Olivia squeezed her eyes shut. ‘For the same reason everyone’s in love with Phil even though he looks like a barnyard animal. Drugs.’

‘OK,’ said Katie loudly, ‘I UNDERSTAND.’

There was an endless tense moment next door as everything went quiet. The two girls looked at one another. There was a pause. Then the ritual banging started again.

‘Jesus,’ said Olivia. She looked at Katie. ‘Couldn’t you have bought a bigger flat?’

‘In North London?’ Katie nodded. ‘Sure! I should have gone for the rooftop swimming pool. And the maid’s quarters. I’m a complete idiot.’

‘I’m just saying.’ Olivia believed in karma and therefore probably did think having a tiny flat and a huge mortgage in Kentish Town was Katie’s fault.

Katie loudly turned the page.

‘Bloody hell!’ she exploded.

‘What? New revolutionary soundproofing spray just invented?’

‘No.’

‘New laws make it easier to expel noisy tenants?’

‘No.’

‘Sex makes you put on more weight than Atkins’ diet?’

‘Look,’ said Katie, pointing at the paper.

Olivia squinted at it upside down.

‘“Women Going Men Crazy,”’ she read out loud. ‘You really have to stop buying these women-hating papers.’

They both read the article rolling their eyes. It asserted that their generation of women was a clutch of uncontrollable pissed-up hose-monsters on the loose, terrorising the five nice remaining men in the world. The problem was, from the sounds next door, it was tricky to disagree.

‘It says here that there’re no men left and we’re all going barking. Well, that would explain a lot,’ said Olivia.

‘If that’s true, why is it him in there who’s doing the barking?’

Suddenly there was a high-pitched wailing sound.

The two girls looked at each other.

‘I’d start a round of applause,’ said Olivia, ‘if I’d heard even the tiniest little peep out of Lou.’

‘Also, we want to pretend absolutely nothing just happened,’ said Katie, turning back to her paper. ‘It says we’re all drunken slutbuckets.’

‘slutbuckets? Really?’ said Olivia.

‘Honestly, I haven’t yet thought up a better way to cope with the modern London man,’ said Katie sadly.

The door opened down the corridor, and the paperthin walls shook slightly. The room they were in, Katie’s living room, had a band of old kitchen on the far side. The estate agent had assured her this would make it wonderful for entertaining. In fact, it merely made sure that Katie never ever cooked fish.

Louise tiptoed in, ostentatiously yawning. She had great legs, which she ignored, and a big nose, which she fixated on.

‘Ooh, just been asleep…thought I’d have a bit of a lie-in…tea…I think…’

The other two girls looked at her and waited.

‘Sleepy sleepy sleepy…’ continued Louise, trying to turn on the kettle in an overtly surreptitious manner.

‘I heard about this girl once,’ said Olivia. ‘She told terrible lies and then one day she got run over by a car because she was such a terrible liar. Karma.’

‘Yes. Her name was Chlamydia,’ said Katie sternly. ‘Chlamydia Liar.’

Louise rolled her eyes.

‘OK. OK. I met someone.’

‘Someone? Or something?’

She shot the two girls a look.

‘I just had sex with a man. Which is more than you two have done for months.’

‘I don’t think I’ve seen a man for months,’ said Olivia. ‘What are they like?’

Louise shrugged.

‘Umm…they have less hair than us in some bits. And more in other bits.’

‘Like monkeys,’ added Katie helpfully.

‘What else?’ Olivia was handling the kettle now, so it was filthy organic green tea in the offing.

‘Umm, they have these kind of lever thingies,’ said Louise.

‘What do they do?’ asked Katie.

‘They go up and down,’ said Louise, stirring in three sugars whilst Olivia gave her a disapproving look.

‘The way they work is, in Soho, other men have a hole shaped like the lever,’ said Olivia. ‘The two bits fit together.’

Katie took her horrid tea and went back to the sitting-room area of the room.

‘Ahh,’ she said. ‘Will we ever get to meet one of these remarkable specimens?’

Louise looked guilty.

‘Uh, maybe not this one,’ she said.

In Square Root, Terence – that was his name – was explaining how he’d dicked someone over at work in revenge for beating him on a deal. This was the date Katie had been looking forward to for weeks. She’d come to view it as the end of an intolerable dry spell, the way a prisoner views their parole date.

She took another sip of wine, feeling groggy. One shouldn’t really place such high expectations on things. Why was Terence wearing a Burberry cap that also said Von Dutch on the front? And what was underneath it?

‘Fing is,’ said Terence conclusively, ‘I’m all for equal opportunities, and I don’t care if it was a bird – she still had it coming to her.’

Then, on Tuesday morning, she’d run into Olivia on the Tube. It was an unseasonably hot day for early in the year, and everyone in the rush hour was miserable in woollies and heavy jackets. Katie was a master of the Tube; avoiding eye contact, walking past buskers and unfolding her Metro with a hearty flourish. She may not like London all the time, she often pondered, but by God, she belonged.

Olivia was Katie’s boss and, behind the scenes, secret friend. It was a bit like having an office romance, with the result that at work she was a lot harder on Katie than she would have been otherwise. At least, that was Katie’s hypothesis.

‘I wouldn’t have minded,’ said Katie, swinging off the filthy Tube holds and wondering as usual if anyone ever washed them. They were squeezed together in a carriage full of women, jolting their way into Soho where they worked. ‘But I did see him. He was even worse than he sounded.’

Olivia rolled her eyes. ‘How could he not be? She practically dug a tunnel to get him out of there. Bald fat midget?’

‘Fat beardy twat face.’

Katie shook her head. Poor old Louise had never been the same since Max left.

‘Well, we were watching EastEnders. A world where people fancy Shane Ritchie is obviously a place where things have gone very very wrong for women.’

They looked around the carriage. The scent of perfume was strong in the air. An elegant woman – one of those types that can pull off casually draped scarves – was skilfully applying lipstick despite the motion of the rickety old train. Three others stood buried in women’s magazines and copies of Metro; a couple were hidden behind novels. On the seats were three men buried in newspapers, ferociously showing how post-feminist they were by not giving up their seats. A mixed group of backpackers stood at the end, but they existed in the parallel universe of travellers; Kiwis and Australians and South Africans and Poles and cheap nights in special bars and internet cafés and their own magazines. But the vast majority of the carriage was female. Dozens of them. Katie squinted. Had it always been like this? Was she only just noticing?

Olivia was rudely reading someone’s paper over their shoulder. She nudged Katie suddenly.

‘Look at that.’

‘No! It’s rude!’

The woman whose paper it was turned around and Katie got a dirty look. She felt hard done by and narrowed her eyes back. Had she been this aggressive before she moved to London?

‘Look,’ whispered Olivia this time, scarcely quieter.

Katie didn’t get it, the paper was full of its usual rubbish. Olivia was trying to indicate a corner with her eyes, like someone in a coma. Eventually, with lots of grumpy snuffling from the woman to indicate that, though not the type to instigate physical violence, she certainly did not approve of the practice of newspaper stealing, even a free newspaper, and if she could move in the packed sardine tin she would, thank you, Katie saw it.

‘Final census results for London’ said the headline. ‘According to the 2001 census, women outnumber men in the capital by 180,000.’

Olivia was wiggling her eyebrows madly. ‘See?’

‘See what?’

‘What the papers are saying is true.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, what do we say every time we walk into a bar?’

‘It smells bad in here?’

‘No.’

‘We’re getting too old for this?’

Olivia rolled her eyes. ‘OK, besides that.’

‘Where have all the men gone?’

‘Bingo.’

‘Well, that –’ the woman holding the paper was no longer sniffing, but listening to them intently ‘– that’s our proof. We’re the L.O.S.T. generation of women.’

‘The what?’

‘London-On our Own-Single-Twentysomethings.’

‘That doesn’t sound so bad,’ said Olivia.

‘It’s bad! It’s bad! It says so in the paper.’

‘Stop worrying about it! What kind of a feminist are you?’

‘One that wants the right to decide if I want a bloke or not.’

‘OK,’ said Olivia. ‘And…do you?’

‘YES!’ said Katie. ‘And men can sense it. That’s why I never meet any. I give off strange vibes.’

‘Ssh now,’ said Olivia.

‘OK,’ said Katie. They travelled on in silence for a while.

‘You know Louise’s fat beardy twat face didn’t even call,’ she said finally.

Olivia rolled her eyes. ‘Probably staying in and washing his hairs.’

‘There are NO MEN,’ sighed Katie for what felt like the nine millionth time.

‘Yeah,’ said a voice near their ankles. They both looked down. An extremely short, sandy-haired man with a nose like a sun-dried tomato was addressing them both.

‘What?’ said Olivia, loftily.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You mean, there’s no tall rich men.’

‘No, we don’t,’ said Katie. ‘Do we?’

‘You’re wearing a wedding ring,’ said Olivia suspiciously.

‘She’s gorgeous,’ said the little chap. ‘And twenty-four.’ He looked at them pointedly.

The woman who’d been holding the paper looked down too.

‘You are right you know,’ she said to the girls, her initial frostiness thawing. ‘The paper says so. But I knew it anyway. Statistically, there are no men.’

An obviously gay man standing next to her raised an eyebrow and flared just one of his nostrils.

‘You think that,’ he said.

All three women rolled their eyes.

Another woman leaned over. This was unheard of in the Tube in rush hour; an actual conversation. This woman was tall, skinny and wearing lime green fishnets and what looked like a bin bag.

‘I work in fashion,’ she said.

‘No kidding,’ said Olivia.

‘No men,’ said the fashion woman.

‘Publishing,’ said the woman with the newspaper. ‘No men.’

‘Try being a nanny!’ came a squeaky Scandinavian voice from the back. ‘Only married creeps there!’

The little man looked smug and grabbed Katie’s skirt.

‘I’ve banged them all,’ he whispered.

Katie hadn’t minded so much at the time – after all, she had a date, the date she was now in the middle of. Terence had now embarked on a story about a fantastic deal he had made at work that had made everybody else look like idiots, except for him. This, it came to her in a moment of clarity, was why she was getting drunk. And she should leave quickly, just in case she tipped over the edge and suddenly started finding him inexplicably attractive.

She’d asked around the office, pretending it was research. Working in PR, as Katie and Olivia both did, you could pretend a lot of things were research.

‘Well, what do you think?’ she’d asked Miko in the office, who was trying to be sympathetic and maintain her perfect inch-long fingernails at the same time. ‘Are there really no men?’

‘Yeah,’ said Miko lazily, peeling off a strip of old polish. Katie couldn’t bear it when she did this. Katie herself was doing a wrinkle check in the cosmetic mirror Miko kept on her desk. She felt troubled.

‘I mean,’ said Miko, ‘they’re just spoilt for choice, aren’t they?’

Katie thought about this for a second. ‘You think…what, men are just too nonchalant with all the women around now?’

Miko shrugged. ‘Well, look.’ She indicated the trendy sloped glass wall which overlooked the lobby of their Covent Garden building. Katie looked down. It always made her feel slightly sick, as if she were going to fall in.

‘Girl girl girl,’ intoned Miko as people walked through the door. ‘Fat bloke. Girl girl girl. Hairy-wristed bloke shagging that girl there. Married too. Girl girl girl.’

Katie sat back. ‘So, what – you’re saying the men all have two women each and there’s still lots of girls left over?’

She thought back over the men working in their office. There were two. Fat Paul who did the books and smelled of egg sandwiches, of which he consumed copious amounts, leaving a trail of watercress wherever he went, and a small gremlin in the IT department who veered away from direct sunlight. Both had unexpectedly attractive wives who turned up stoically at the Christmas party knowing everyone was looking at them thinking, ‘Really? Is he fantastic in bed?’

‘Hi Lucca,’ shouted Miko to the gorgeous, tawnycoloured Italian girl passing her desk, who worked in the marketing department. ‘How did your blind date go?’

Lucca swung her heavy beige-blonde hair in a circle. ‘I know why you call it “blind date” now,’ she hissed.

Miko shrugged. ‘Why?’

‘Because I want to stab my eyes out with fork! Tell me, why does he think I am interested he meets Robert Kilroy-Silk?’

Katie and Miko both shrugged.

‘Why he want tell me – before drink before dinner even that he is not ready for long-term relationship?’

‘Would we be better off with Italian boys?’ asked Katie sympathetically.

‘No! Only if you be their mother always.’

Lucca made a wild emphatic gesture that indicated a general wrath towards the male species altogether and headed off to dish out more abuse to the coffee machine.

‘Lucca’s much more beautiful than me,’ mused Katie sadly.

‘Yes, she is,’ said Miko.

‘But still gets dickheads.’

‘Who do you get then?’ asked Miko.

Terence, clearly. He’d seemed all right when they’d met at that barbecue. OK, there’d been lots of other people there, and quite a lot of beer, but now…As if doing the opposite of reading her mind, Terence confidently placed a podgy hand on her knee. Inside, Katie recoiled.

‘I just want you to know,’ he said, boozily breathing in her face. ‘I’m just in this for a bit of fun, yeah? Nothing too serious.’

Katie hadn’t liked the way the conversation with Miko was going.

Really, what was wrong with her? True, Katie Watson would never win any international modelling competitions. She liked to watch documentaries where hatchet-faced women run up to lanky adolescent girls in the street, whisking them off to new modelling worlds of fun and rock stars in Milan and Tokyo, but she never kidded herself that was her destiny. Olivia said once this had happened to her, but although she certainly was lanky, Katie thought she might have been a) telling a fib (not out of character for Olivia), or b) been a victim of a misunderstanding concerning teenage prostitution.

Katie was, well, cute, she supposed. ‘You’re a cutie,’ her ex-boyfriends had said. None of them had ever said, ‘Katherine Watson, you are the most staggeringly beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. I would kill for you. I would lie down and die for you. Your muddy-coloured eyes sparkle like moonbeams; your soft lips, though not in the Angelina Jolie class, are like peaches. Your wide hips are life in my hands and your slightly short stature I consider nothing but a delight.’

Still, it made her look younger than she was, that was something about having a pixie face and a pointed chin. Although she was definitely growing out of the age where she could wear pigtails to accentuate trying to be cute, which she supposed had benefits in no longer having men ask her how long her stockings were.

OK, on a level of perfectly scientific analysis, she was better looking than about sixty-five per cent of the people she had been to school with and, according to Friends Reunited, every single one of them now had kids. All of them. Even Magda with the Sellotape on her glasses and you couldn’t tell if she was looking at you or not. Even Mary Tracey Frances McGoolie, who gave off BO like a blowtorch. And, up until now, Katie hadn’t had a date for four months.

Four months, entirely chap-free. And if she was being strictly honest…she doodled about while her computer warmed up, still staring into the lobby…if she was going to be utterly honest, Clive hadn’t really been the stuff of her dreams. In fact, if she was honest she’d only dated him to break her previous three-month date-free desert. That was why she hadn’t minded so much that he had a skin condition behind his ears and scratched it all over his caesar salad.

Katie quickly sniffed under her armpits. OK, so it wasn’t that.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Miko.

‘Nothing!’ said Katie. ‘Checking my email.’

Miko looked under her own armpit.

‘Have you got something new from IT they haven’t told the rest of us about?’

‘No.’ Katie sighed. ‘What’s wrong with me Miko?’

Miko gave her a narrow look. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘That sounded like hmm hmm BUT,’ said Katie. ‘You know, as in nothing…BUT; or I’m single…BUT.’

‘But look at the facts,’ said Miko.

‘Ahh,’ said Katie.

‘We’re in the middle of a crisis.’

‘I wish people would stop saying that. What crisis?’

‘The no-men crisis, you idiot.’

‘Is that a real crisis?’

For the first time Katie noticed that Miko wore false eyelashes to go with her false nails. Was anything about her real? Was that Katie’s problem – too real?

Miko stared at her.

‘What?’ asked Katie.

‘You mean you really don’t know there’s a crisis?’

Miko patiently indicated the big glass lobby wall again. ‘Girl. Girl. Baldie. Girl. Girl. Don’t you get it?’

‘There are no men?’

‘Durr.’

‘But that’s just something people say. We say it every day.’

‘Because it’s true,’ said Miko. ‘Why do you think I bought these tits?’

‘Maybe I should buy some tits,’ said Katie absentmindedly in the Square Root, hiccuping for good measure.

Terence’s little toad eyes lit up. ‘I think you look gorgeous,’ he said hopefully. Katie couldn’t believe she’d just said that out loud and, taking it as her own final warning, stood up. If his job was as brilliant as he’d been claiming for the last three hours, perhaps he wouldn’t mind getting the drinks. She stumbled to the ladies.

On Tuesday night the girls had met up in the wine bar. All around them were lots of other girls having girls’ nights out. A lot of white wine was being slugged. Shoes and voices were high. The only man in sight was the waiter. ‘Oh God,’ said Louise. ‘Keep me out of sight of the waiter.’

‘That waiter is the biggest slag in NW11,’ said Olivia loudly. ‘Oh. Sorry Louise.’

Louise was pink. ‘I’d had too much white wine. They serve it in those enormous glasses.’

‘And then a dog ate your homework,’ said Katie. Really, she wanted to talk about work but it was really difficult with Olivia there. Recently, she’d felt as if, on some level, there was a tiny teeny-weeny possibility that doing PR for new food and drink products was…perhaps just the slightest bit…pointless? Not that there was necessarily anything wrong with anchovy pretzels and pink cola, it’s just, that sometimes – like every morning on the Tube – she wished maybe she were doing something a little more useful.

‘What was he like?’ said Olivia to Louise, eyeing the dark-haired waiter preening himself in the bar mirror and deftly jamming two glasses down in the glass washer as if it were an incredibly cool thing to be doing.

‘Perfunctory,’ said Louise uncomfortably. ‘He gave me the impression that, working here, it’s part of his job description.’

‘Ladies.’

He had materialised at their elbow. Louise was suddenly peering for something so deeply in her fake Birkin she looked like a horse with a feedbag.

‘What’s that thing we’re meant to get because we’re too cool for chardonnay now?’ asked Olivia.

‘Pinot Grigio,’ said Katie. ‘Tastes the same, more expensive.’

‘Ah, the plastic Prada bag school of ordering,’ said Olivia. ‘One of those please.’

‘Of course,’ said the waiter. ‘You all look very nice tonight.’

‘Thank you,’ said Louise from the nose up. ‘Again.’

The waiter gave her a quizzical look which showed absolutely no signs of recognition whatsoever, and scooted off.

‘Maybe you should rethink that whole “having unbelievably casual sex” thing,’ said Olivia.

Louise grimaced. ‘I’m getting over Max, OK, and having a great time. Really, really great. Plus, as I keep telling you, it’s the law of averages. If there’s only one perfect person out there for you, you’ve just got to get cracking. And never look back.’

‘What if the one perfect person out there for you is a pig?’ said Olivia dreamily. ‘Or married to Jennifer Aniston?’

‘What if they live in Laos?’ said Louise. ‘That’s what bothers me. Or if they speak Tulag. Did you know that’s the hardest language on earth to learn?’

The other girls stared at her as the waiter popped out the cork from the bottle with practised ease and poured them large glasses.

Louise looked sulky as all around them the women squawked and chattered, their slim legs and expensive shoes glinting in the flattering soft light reflecting off the beige leather chairs. Katie looked at Louise and worried about her. And herself.

‘Goodnight Terence,’ said Katie when she got back from the loo. She tried to be as nice as possible.

‘£60!’ Terence was saying. ‘For this shit! Jesus!’

‘Would you like me to go halves?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘If you like.’

Crossly, Katie put down half the money, noticing Terence counted out his share and didn’t leave a tip.

She felt infinitely more sober once she hit the open air. She liked walking in the city at night. People and couples lurched, shouted or shuffled along, no one paying her the blindest bit of notice.

The familiar sounds of sirens and late-night misadventures echoed as she cut down past the Opera House, her heels clattering on the cobbles, leaving the heavy traffic behind her. A chap was weaving slightly by the side of the road, and she subconsciously hurried up a little bit.

‘’Ello darlin’,’ he shouted after her. ‘You look nice.’

Probably only compared to him, a very drunk man attempting to take a piss on the street, but still, she appreciated the gesture.

She was wondering how low she could possibly plummet on her male-attention appreciation charts, when suddenly, out of nowhere the man was right in front of her. She jumped six feet in the air.

‘Fuck!’ she said. ‘You gave me a fright.’

Her heart started to pound, hard, when she realised it wasn’t the same man after all. She couldn’t work out who this person was or how he had landed in front of her, but late on a Thursday night on a deserted street, it didn’t feel good…Her eyes whipped around to the side, but the genial drunkard was gone.

‘Ah,’ said a soft voice with a slight accent. ‘Yes. That can be what happens.’

He was tall and, with her heart banging furiously, Katie saw that he was dressed all in black, with a hat pulled down over his eyes. He was standing directly in front of the streetlight and she couldn’t make out his face. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. This was not good. Man in black on deserted street – either there was Milk Tray involved or this was definitely the opposite of good. Her eyes flicked to the side to see where she could run to and she cursed her ridiculous heels.

‘No,’ warned the voice. ‘Running. Don’t do it. I have a knife. Or a gun. Or something really bad. And you look like a nice person.’

Katie stared at him, frightened beyond belief.

‘I – I am a nice person,’ she said, her voice two octaves higher than normal. ‘Can you let me go?’

‘I can always tell,’ said the man. ‘I only go for nice people.’

Oh fuck oh fuck. She was going to get raped or killed or kidnapped or tortured. The worst, the most awful thing was happening. Oh God. She was in the middle of one of the most crowded cities in the world. Where the hell were all the people? Oh no. She was going to be left for dead in an alley. She wondered how they’d describe her in the papers.

‘Show me your phone,’ said the man gruffly. He took her by the arm – Katie flinched and started shaking like a foal – and led her to the dark side of the road. They could have been a couple talking.

Her phone. Of course. If she were an actress in 24 she would have thought to have done something useful with that. But she knew from her trembling fingers she’d have been incapable of pressing the tiny keys as she drew it out of her bag.

‘This is a shit phone,’ said the man, staring at the cheap little black handset.

‘Yeah,’ said Katie. Everyone kept telling her it was a shit phone. Maybe that would save her life – or make him kill her out of sheer disgust at her poor taste.

The man dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his boot. ‘You should be more stylish,’ he said. ‘You should have a better phone.’

He carefully took her bag from her and started rummaging inside.

‘And look at this mess. What a mess. How can you ever find anything in here? It’s full of tissues and lipsticks.’

‘It’s to deter muggers,’ said Katie. She still couldn’t get a look at his face, but for a murderous rapist, he didn’t seem very interested in her. In fact, he was looking at her lipstick with more interest.

‘You have a boyfriend?’

‘What?’

‘Yes, I think you have no boyfriend. You should ditch the orange lipstick. Orange, not good for you. Maybe why you have no boyfriend.’

‘Are you going to make me up like your dead mother and rape me to death?’ asked Katie in a panic.

It was dark, but she could catch the incredulous glint in his eye.

‘No!’ he laughed. ‘I’m going to take,’ he emptied out the coin section. ‘Twenty-four pounds and nineteen pence. And these cards, for about half an hour. Don’t worry. They’ll give you the money back, so it’ll be fine. Except for the twenty-four quid. Sorry about that.’

‘Don’t apologise,’ said Katie, furious. ‘Don’t do it!’

‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘No. I’m going to do it.’

He handed her back the bag.

‘That’s a messy bag. You should have a stylish bag. Don’t you have anyone to look after you?’

‘Shut up!’

‘Nice girl like you. Should have a nice man to look after you. Buy you nice bags.’

He looked regretful. ‘Well. Thanks. Have a safe trip home. Have you got a travel card?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. OK. Be safe. Bye!’

Katie turned around to stare at him as he dived off, quick as a cat. Her heart couldn’t quite take in what had happened and kept whumping away, and she suddenly found it difficult to get her breath. She leaned against the wall.

‘Fuck,’ she heaved.

The drunk man wobbled over.

‘Hello darlin’!’

‘Where the fuck were you?’ she shrieked at him. ‘I could have been killed!’

He straightened up and managed to focus for a second.

‘Sorry love,’ he slurred. ‘I’ve already got a girlfriend.’

And he wobbled off.

‘Don’t worry love,’ said the policeman.

Louise, who she’d called in from home, was hanging about worriedly.

‘I mean, he didn’t, like, touch you up or nothing, did he?’

Katie looked at him hard. Was this the new, softer, intouch policing she kept hearing so much about?

‘No,’ she said calmly. She was feeling a lot less shaken up now than when she’d stumbled into the police station at Covent Garden. In fact, after a couple of cups of tea, she was actually feeling strangely embarrassed about the whole thing, as if she shouldn’t have bothered troubling anyone for something as clearly unimportant as a non-rape/murder-related mugging. Outside a car alarm was blaring away, but nobody was paying it the least attention.

‘He just jumped me, took all my stuff and scared me half to death.’

‘Yeah,’ said the policeman, as if he’d just been told one of his shoelaces was untied. ‘That happens.’

‘Go find him and put him in prison,’ said Katie. ‘Now, please.’

The policeman looked down at the blank sheet of paper on his desk. ‘It’s just, we’re not doing too well with the witness description.’

‘Black hat pulled down over his face. Foreign accent.’

‘Oh, him,’ said the policeman. ‘He shouldn’t be any trouble at all.’

‘Do you work late?’ said Louise, batting her eyelashes.

‘Louise, would you kindly shut it?’ said Katie.

Louise shrugged. ‘Sure, sure, just…’

‘I work shifts,’ said the policeman, bluntly appraising her. ‘Often up late, know what I mean?’

Katie quickly spotted the wedding ring and raised her eyebrows.

‘Do you…come and go in the night?’ said Louise lasciviously.

‘Actually, now I come to think about it, I hit my head on the pavement and now have concussion,’ said Katie crossly.

‘Depends if it’s an emergency,’ said the policeman over her head. ‘You know…if you really really need me.’

Katie stood up from the dingy grey plastic chair. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting a lift home in a police car while it’s going “nee naw nee naw” is there?’

‘Maybe,’ said the policeman, still looking at Louise. Louise coloured.

‘I’ll just take the form for my insurance, thanks.’ Katie snatched the banda sheet away from him.

‘There’s no need to be like that,’ he said. ‘You’ve just described something that happens a thousand times a day in the West End and you’ve given us nothing to go on. We’re really sorry.’

Katie harrumphed. ‘Well, it shouldn’t happen at all. Anything could have happened.’

‘Yes, trust me, you’re not the type. Can I offer you some victim support?’

‘I’m not the type???’

‘Shh,’ said Louise. ‘He probably just meant you don’t look like a soft target. That’s good, you know. You look like a proper Londoner, not a rube.’ Louise brushed down her micromini thoughtfully.

Katie grimaced. ‘I don’t think that at all. I think I’m…I think I’m getting tired of this stupid city, you know.’

‘Shh,’ said Louise again. ‘You don’t mean that. You love London.’

‘I thought I did,’ said Katie. There was a car alarm going off here too, but she didn’t think it was the same one. She wandered over to where Louise was making instant coffee from a tiny fun-sized jar. That was one of the disadvantages of her new flatmate; she wasn’t quite the coffee purist Katie had learned to be – another important London skill. She picked up the jar.

‘How on earth could this jar of coffee cost £2.39? It’s scaled for a family of mice.’

‘It was late,’ said Louise. ‘It was all I could get from the corner shop.’

Katie looked at the massive patch of damp over the kitchen wall. ‘You know, I can’t fix that patch of damp because every ten minutes someone new moves in next door and they won’t share the cost so nobody knows what to do.’

‘And you’re lazy and disorganised,’ said Louise. ‘What’s your point?’

‘I don’t know…I think maybe London is driving me nuts.’

‘Just because of one lousy mugger? And one crappy date? What about all the fantastic museums and parks we never go to?’

‘OK, but that was just tonight. But London…it’s so full of show-offs and loudmouths.’

‘But we like those kinds of people.’

‘I know – maybe that’s the problem,’ said Katie. She stared at the damp patch and tried again. ‘It’s just…everyone always wants to know what your job is. Why is that?’

‘Because when you meet a lot of new people, you have to ask them something?’ said Louise. ‘If you live in a small village you don’t need to say anything at all. Everybody already knows how overdue your library books are and how much money you make and whether or not your husband’s having an affair with the goat from the next village. And whether so and so’s daughter cheeked Mr Beadle at the bus stop. And who threw away the advertising leaflets in the big hedge.’

‘You really hated Hertfordshire, didn’t you Lou?’ said Katie sympathetically, patting her knee.

‘Well, London is what it is. I mean, so there’s the rain and the buses and the clubs you can’t get into and the Congestion Charge and the snotty shops and the way everything is always fifteen miles away and takes for ever and the way no one from the north, south-east or west ever sees anyone from anywhere except those places and despises the people that come from anywhere else. It’s obsessed with trainers, cocktails, guest lists and whatever the fucking Evening Standard tells them to be obsessed with.’

‘That’s not sounding so good,’ said Katie.

‘But it’s all we’ve got,’ finished Louise. ‘Don’t you see? We don’t have a huge amount of choice. It’s this, or having people discuss everything you buy in the Spar.’

‘The what?’

‘The Spar,’ Louise pouted. ‘If you have no shop, you’re a hamlet. If you have a Spar, you’re a village. If you have a Fairfields, you’re a town. Anyway, that’s not the point…’

‘And if you have a cathedral, you’re a city! So that’s how it works,’ said Katie. ‘I never knew that.’

‘Well,’ Louise pouted again.

‘There’s always the suburbs,’ offered Katie.

‘Do I look like I enjoy having my hair done and committing adultery?’ sniffed Louise.

‘Yes,’ said Katie.

‘That’s not the point. The point is, that the city is cool.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s urban, and hip, and…there’s hip things going on, and…’

Katie sipped her coffee carefully. ‘When’s the last time you bought Time Out?’

‘What? Why?’

‘Just asking.’

‘When’s the last time I bought Time Out?’ Louise looked as if she were trying to remember.

‘You’re scared of Time Out,’ said Katie.

‘I am not.’

‘You are. You’re scared of it. I remember. You moved here, read it for six months, never ever did any of the cool things it suggested that you do. Now you’re scared of it because it reminds you that there’s lots of things happening and all we ever do is go to work, go to the wine bar, and look for men.’

‘So, what do you want? A pair of flashy wellies? Some chickens?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Katie. ‘But I do know I want a change.’

A week later, they were at a new, trendier, cocktail bar. Olivia and Louise were staring grumpily into their espresso martinis. Katie’s head was hidden behind a paper.

‘Press officer required for a children’s hospital,’ she read. ‘See! I could do some good in the world.’

‘Are you thinking about hot doctors?’ asked Louise.

‘With cool caring hands and a lovely bedside manner? No,’ said Katie quickly.

‘Make sure you ask them about the cool caring hands bit at the interview – there’s a lot of girl doctors these days.’

Katie turned the page and sighed.

‘Put the paper down,’ said Olivia. ‘You’re not leaving, and that’s the end of it. I need you. We’ve got the carbohydrate-free chip coming up. It tastes like shit, but the magic is, it looks like a chip.’

‘Plus, we’ve got lots to do. You know, there’s that new dating thing on at Vinopolis,’ Louise said. ‘We could go to that. You eat your dinner in the dark, and get to know people without seeing them.’

‘You can tell if people are fat just from the way they sound,’ said Olivia.

‘No you can’t!’

‘Yes you can! And if they’re drippy and wet.’

‘You are an evil, prejudiced woman.’

‘Hey, look at this,’ said Katie.

She showed them the advert.

Can you see the wood for the trees? Fairlish Forestry Commission is looking for a press officer with at least three years’ experience in a related field. Knowledge of local wildlife/degree in zoology preferred. Contact: 1 Buhvain Grove, Fairlish IV74 9PB. Salary £24k

They gathered around to take a look at it. There was a long silence.

‘Katie,’ said Olivia gently. ‘Put the paper down. You know your degree is in history of art and theatre studies.’

‘It says “preferred”,’ said Katie.

Olivia sighed and jumped down inelegantly from the ridiculously high stools to join the queue for the ladies.

‘Think, open spaces, fresh air…’

‘You hate fresh air,’ said Louise.

‘Maybe I just don’t know what it is…’

‘Forestry Commission?’ said Louise. ‘Katie, all you know about is lipgloss and low-fat fudge.’

‘That’s related,’ said Katie. ‘We do lots of not-tested-on-animals stuff.’

‘OK, question one,’ said Louise. ‘What is the local wildlife?’

‘Badgers?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know,’ said Louise, ‘because I haven’t the faintest clue where Fairlish is. Do you?’

‘You’re being very negative,’ said Katie. ‘Is it so bad to want a change?’

‘It is if they’re only paying you 24k.’

‘I think I’ll head for home,’ said Katie, folding up the paper in a suspiciously noisy flurry.

‘Why?’ Olivia, returned, sounded suspicious.

‘Bit tired…no reason.’

‘Are you going home to make up an imaginary CV?’ whispered Louise as she got up to walk Katie to the Tube – she was still a little nervous late at night.

Katie didn’t answer.

‘You realise you’d put the lives of hundreds of innocent animals at risk?’

‘What if Fairlish is actually in Liberia?’ said Olivia. ‘Lots of people read this paper, all over the world. You’ll be sorry.’

‘Well, I’m in PR,’ said Katie. ‘I’d put a brave face on it.’

Chapter Two

There were only three other people on the train. The rolling stock seemed to be pre-war, and big clouds of dust had risen from the seats when she put her bag down. One couple of old men were talking a language she didn’t understand, didn’t recognise from anywhere, despite her year travelling. It seemed to consist mostly of Bs and Vs and sounded as though they were singing.

It wasn’t them that captured Katie’s attention however; further down the carriage was a woman stroking the nose of what Katie had assumed to be a poodle. She had had to check herself to see if she was sleeping (it had been a very long journey) when she heard the poodle baa.

Katie turned her head and stared out of the window. She couldn’t believe she had travelled so far and was still in the same country – well, on the same island. Instead of small mean houses and grey buildings filling her window, there were dramatic hills soaring steeply up on either side of the track. The hills were dark colours, greens and purples and blues. It looked cold and austere, with occasional shafts of sunlight breaking through and the occasional flash of something bouncing through the undergrowth – rabbits, probably.

Katie shifted uncomfortably. She still couldn’t believe she’d applied for this job. It may as well be the rainforest out here. Olivia had thrown her hands in the air when she realised Katie had never even visited Scotland before.

‘Not even once? To take some crappy show to the Edinburgh Festival? School trip to the Burrell Collection? Horrible school holiday where it rained all the time and you lost your Pacamac, your sandwich lunch and your virginity all on the same day?’

Katie looked at her curiously.

‘Not that that ever happened to me. Or anyone I know,’ continued Olivia quickly. ‘But that’s not the point. How can you have been to India and not to Scotland?’

‘Have you been to Northern Ireland?’

‘That’s not the point either. And I’m not the one who’s got an interview in a country I know nothing about. Which, by the way, you’re not taking, as I need you on the margarita toothpaste account. Where are you going to change your money? Are these interview people going to sort out your working visa?’

Katie’s eyes widened. ‘I need a…?’

Olivia put up her hands. ‘Oh God. This is going to go horribly, horribly wrong and we, your faithful, lonely, overworked, underpaid London spinster friends are going to have to find time in our packed schedules to pick up the pieces when it’s over. In about a month.’

She’d been right about the money though, Katie thought, feeling for her coat pocket. She didn’t even know pound notes still existed.

The letter had been brief.

Dear Ms Watson,

You are invited to an interview at Fairlish Forestry Commission at 4.30 p.m. Tuesday April 20th. You will be picked up at the railway station. Travelling expenses may be claimed.

Yours faithfully,

Harry Barr

Katie had pored over this letter a hundred times, trying to read between the lines, of which there weren’t many, admittedly. Was she expected to stay overnight (given the length of the journey, she couldn’t really see any other way, barring a helicopter airlift)? Was she expected to find out lots of information on the commission by herself? She’d done as much crash-course research on national parks as she could manage, but she was very nervous that her obvious lack of experience would tumble out as soon as she opened her mouth. Then there was her Southern accent, which had made her few friends the four times she’d had to buy herself a connecting ticket on the journey so far.

She smoothed out her wrinkled Tara Jarmon interview suit. This was probably an enormous mistake too. She should have probably worn rubber overalls and a Barbour. No, forget probably – there was no place here for anything but wellingtons. Where was she anyway? The train had already stopped at lots of stations that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere – Dundonnell, Gairloch – which seemed to be nothing more than platforms, with miles of scenery around them.

The few people that were left on the train got off, including the woman with the sheep, until it was just Katie, her briefcase, a headful of terms like ‘judicious pruning’ and ‘sustainable development’ that she didn’t understand, and a slowly mounting sense of panic.

The tiny train cut through a huge oversized valley and gradually slowed to a halt. There was one weather-beaten sign that said ‘Fairlish – Fhearlis’. Shocked out of her reverie, Katie jumped to her feet and stumbled about, as if the train were going to carry on without her.

The station confirmed her worst fears. She did a 360-degree turn. Above the purple mountains, a black cloud was ominously moving across the sky, and there was no building at the station at all; it was simply a halt, a platform in the air.

‘Bollocks,’ said Katie out loud – there was no one to hear her, just some enormous birds circling silently in the air above.

There was a torn old timetable on the side of the platform, but she didn’t have the energy to look at it. She felt tired, grubby from the journey, starving hungry, and as far away from London as she’d ever been in her life – certainly a lot further away than she had felt on her year off in Goa, which had been full of Brits, Kiwis, Aussies and South Africans. This place was full of nothing at all, and she didn’t know what to do. For a second she let herself remember the wide-open spaces and hot colours of India. She’d felt so free there.

There was a rumbling noise above her. Katie looked up. The birds had fled. Instead, the cloud had hit the side of the mountain. A few spits turned into a deluge. Katie’s blue peacoat, of which she’d been rather proud, was no match for it at all. Within thirty seconds it was soaked through.

‘Shit!’ she yelled, staring straight at the sky. This was the stupidest waste of a day’s annual leave she’d ever had in her life, applying for this stupid job on a whim, just because she had been upset.

The rain showed no signs of letting up, as she stared into the horizon, but she thought she saw something else move; a white dot, far in the distance. She stared at it hard, blinking away the water from her eyelashes. The white dot got bigger. Hugging her arms around herself, she stepped forward and squinted. The white dot resolved itself into a moving shape, then a car, then a Land-Rover. She kept her eyes on it as it bumped over the undergrowth towards her, windscreen wipers going furiously. After what seemed like ages, it finally drew up in front of the platform, and she slowly went down the wooden staircase to meet it.

The engine stopped and a man leaned over, opened the passenger door and beckoned her over. Katie wasn’t sure what to do. This person could be anyone. On the other hand, he could be the person coming to pick her up. After all, how many murderous rapists would pass by a deserted local station in the rain on the off chance that there might be a nervous young city girl hanging around? On the other hand, maybe the whole advertisement had been a trick to get someone here. On the other hand, that was a lot of trouble to go to if you were an unhinged murderous rapist, down to the headed notepaper and everything. And that was a whole lot of hands anyway. This stupid mugging had upset everything.

Katie dropped her head and peered into the front of the car doubtfully.

‘Get in,’ said a voice crossly.

‘Umm, who are you?’

‘I’m the Duke of Buccleuch, who the hell do you think I am? I’m Harry Barr.’

He had a weird accent; he sounded a bit like Scottish people on the telly, but a bit Scandinavian too. She’d never met a Highlander before. He also sounded impatient and a bit pissed off.

‘I’m Katie Watson,’ she said, and, taking a deep breath, she slipped into the car.

‘Is this all there is?’ said Harry irritably. Tall and broad, he was dressed as if on his way to a Highland landwork fancy-dress party; checked shirt, cords, wellies and a Barbour jacket. A thick mane of unruly black hair was flopping over one eye. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

‘Well, I may not have a lot of experience in the field, but I’m very quick to learn,’ said Katie, unhappily aware that the interview appeared to have begun.

‘No, I mean – are you the only person?’

Katie glanced around. She didn’t appreciate being spoken to like a naughty dog.

‘Let me just check – yes.’

Harry Barr eyed her suspiciously. ‘I invited ten people.’

‘I killed and ate them,’ said Katie, and regretted it immediately.

‘What?’

‘I mean, maybe they’re just behind me. When’s the next train?’

‘Tuesday.’

Perhaps this was some sort of psychological chill-out interview, thought Katie. Oh God, what was he doing now? He was bent over to his feet and seemed to be searching for something. He was getting out his knife! Or his gun! They all had guns in the countryside!

‘Here,’ he said. He opened a tartan flask and poured her out a cup of what looked like extremely strong tea.

‘Thank you,’ said Katie, taken aback. They sat in silence for a moment, while she gratefully gulped the hot sweet tea.

‘So you’re the only one,’ said Harry again.

‘Guess I’ve got the job then,’ said Katie cheerfully, trying to get the conversation going.

‘I guess so,’ said Harry. He didn’t sound overjoyed about it.

Katie stared out into the pouring rain in disbelief. He couldn’t be serious. Here she was, sitting in a stranger’s car (a dirty car, that smelled of dog), after a crumpled, filthy, ten-hour journey, staring at the pissing rain in the middle of a godforsaken hellhole in the outer reaches of absolutely bloody nowhere, and he wasn’t even going to ask her the equal opportunities question.

‘I’ll have to think it over,’ she said.

Harry sighed. ‘So I have to do this again.’

‘Do what? You haven’t done anything so far. I’m the one who travelled ten hours up here for a cup of tea.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘You know the train back is in another five minutes.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’d better get it then.’

Katie wondered if he would ask her to stay longer, find out a bit about her. After all she had travelled all this way…

‘You should.’

Well! That was the last straw. She hadn’t travelled all this way to be insulted by some Scotsman with a radish up his arse and the dress sense of Father Dougal MacGuire on a bank holiday.

‘Nice meeting you,’ she said, trying to make her voice drip with sarcasm.

She unlocked the door of the car. After all, she was already soaked through, so a bit more rain wasn’t going to make any difference. Maybe she could spend the night in Inverness…she pictured herself wrapped up in a blanket in some cosy b. & b. after a long hot bath, sipping hot chocolate and watching EastEnders.

‘You probably wouldn’t have fitted in here anyway,’ said Harry suddenly. Oddly, his voice sounded kind, and when she looked at him he was giving her an apologetic half-smile.

‘Yes, I would have,’ she said firmly. ‘I’d have been great.’

Then she stepped out of the Land-Rover, misjudged the height of the car and landed with her new Russell and Bromley boots up to her shins in mud. For several seconds she and Harry regarded each other.

‘I’ve got a tow rope in the back,’ said Harry, finally.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Katie, pulling her feet up with clumsy distaste. ‘Goodb…’ As she was speaking, she felt the rain stop suddenly, as if someone had pulled a switch. Without warning, a shaft of brilliant sunshine struck the car. Turning around, she saw a vast, full doublebowed rainbow leap from hill to hill. It was utterly aweinspiring; completely different from the washed-out colours peeping behind grey buildings one rarely even glimpsed in London. She gaped.

‘Wow,’ she said.

Harry watched her for a moment. These daft city lassies really had no idea what they were doing. Still, at least she’d stopped acting all superior for ten seconds.

‘That’s amazing,’ she said.

‘There’s your train,’ he indicated the little red rolling carriages making their way down the glen. ‘You don’t want to miss it. There isn’t another one until…’

‘Tuesday. Yes. You told me.’

Still keeping her eye on the light show, she made a bedraggled figure limping towards the buffers, her damp cheap briefcase in her hand. Harry gunned the Land-Rover into reverse. Another wee media girl with bucolic fantasies. Best to nip it in the bud. But he was never going to get anyone to sort out this bloody mess. He looked at the business card she’d left him. LiWebber PR. God, he’d have to be desperate.

Chapter Three

‘So you hated it and everything about it in every conceivable way. Well, glad that’s over,’ said Louise. Katie hadn’t yet mentioned to Olivia she’d actually gone for an interview for the job.

‘And I ruined a new pair of boots.’

‘Invoice him.’

‘That’s not a bad idea. Although I’d rather invoice for the ten hours of my life it took me to get back. Mind you…’

‘Mind you what?’

‘Nothing,’ said Katie. ‘It was pretty, that’s all. You could breathe. And do you know how many people in vests stopped me on the street to annoy me for charity while I was there?’

‘How many?’

‘None at all.’

Katie clicked her email thoughtfully. Oh God. Another one from Clara. As usual she would have to fight with herself over whether or not to let Louise see it.

Katie thought back to the days when Louise hadn’t had her knickers permanently on a Venetian blind. Max had been so affable. He and Lou had been joined at the hip for years, it seemed. He was beefy, amiable, liked FHM magazine and, secretly, Jordan, but was never much of a one for doing anything more than having a few beers with his mates, mostly surveyors like him and Louise, or old friends from college when they were all a lot more sporty and trim than they were now; sitting on the sofa and letting Louise make him pasta for supper.

Louise thought he was great and Katie and Olivia found him inoffensive, which, in the current climate, was saying quite a lot. Louise had moved in with him, and it had started to look like they would roll gently on this way for ever. Louise had begun happily to think of engagement rings, honeymoons, joint dinner services…

Then Katie’s sister had come to stay at Katie’s, back in the days when she had a spare room. Twenty-two and just out of college, Clara was an imp and always had been. There were very few photographs of her as a child that didn’t show her either screaming or sticking her tongue out. She had bowled down from Manchester University with various colours in her hair, piercings and a tiny pair of combat trousers. She ate everything in the house, weighed seven stone and stayed out all night dancing and taking drugs in mysterious nightclubs. Katie felt like her mother.

‘Well, my chakra therapist would say it serves you right for always being the good child,’ Olivia had said harshly. ‘If you’d misbehaved a bit more you’d both have balanced out a bit and she wouldn’t get away with nicking all the hummus.’

‘She’s a free spirit,’ said Katie uncomfortably. They’d been sitting in the kitchen trying to ignore the loud jungly banging music coming from the room next door, that had been playing nonstop for thirty-six hours, shattering the three days’ peace they’d just had while Clara was at Glastonbury. (Her birth name was Clara; she made all her hippy friends call her Honeydew.)

‘She’s going to get you done for intent to supply,’ said Louise, sniffing.

‘What am I going to do, tell Mum on her?’

Their mother was living an extremely quiet life on her own in Blackburn – their dad had never been around very much except for the occasional Christmas pressie – and she was constantly amazed at her daughters’ ability to do anything at all – cross the road, find a job, get a mortgage – never mind be exposed to any actual horrors of the modern world.

‘Hey!’ Clara bounced in. She was sun-kissed from a summer of music festivals and hanging around road protests, tiny in her tie-dyed dungarees, and appeared to be growing dreadlocks.

‘Your hair smells,’ said Katie. She had spent the summer writing long proposals to pitch for edible flowers. Unsuccessfully.

Clara pouted. ‘You need to chill out. Would you like a massage?’

‘No, of course I don’t want a massage. I’m not that desperate for human contact that I’ll let you stick your nails in my spine. I haven’t forgotten the havoc you wreaked with my Barbies, thanks, never mind real humans.’

‘How am I ever going to get my massage business started if you won’t let me practise?’

‘You’re opening a “massage” business?’ asked Olivia. ‘Do you do extras?’

‘She’s got a degree in bioengineering. Of course she’s not going to open a massage business,’ said Katie. The four-year age gap was meant to disappear as you got older, but she’d seen no evidence for it yet.

‘Well, there you go, maybe I haven’t quite got my degree,’ said Clara, poking her tongue out as usual. ‘But that doesn’t matter, because before I start the business, I’m going to India.’

Katie sighed looking back. She had been two years into her job then, working all hours, living on hardly any money. It was fun, of course, living the life of a young professional, meeting friends for drinks after work, feeling terribly grown-up and important, but she’d loved her six months travelling around India at the end of her degree. The sense of escaping; of doing something different…she’d loved living on coconuts and fresh air with young people from around the world. And now, here she was, jealous of her baby sister off to do the same thing. How could she feel nostalgic at twenty-nine? And really, what was she doing here anyway that was so great?

She supposed she could chuck it in any time she wanted to. People were always talking about it down here. They were off to open a vineyard in France, or start an adventure holiday business, or import silk. Nobody ever did. London seemed to exert some kind of mystical centrifugal force on everyone, that sucked all ambitions other than a corner office and a cottage in the country out of you as quickly as it sucked the money from your pockets.

Plus, look what the outcome had been. She’d thrown a party for Clara’s leaving. It had been a really good night, actually, full of people (although some of them had dogs on bits of string). Clara spent the whole night holed up in a corner with Max, with whom she’d always had a cheeky, flirtatious relationship. Louise scarcely noticed. Max was furniture; part of her life, and Clara was the baby sister.

Max left his job and flew to India two days later. The one who got away.

And look at the mess you left behind you, Katie thought. If the whole world just did what they wanted all the time, the whole damn place would fall apart.

After assuring Louise through the tears and tequila haze which followed that he would immediately see sense and come back crawling with his tail between his legs, begging her (and, more pertinently, his employers), he hadn’t. Actually, what made it much, much worse was that he decided he needed to rent the flat out to subsidise his new wacky lifestyle, and gave Louise notice to quit, which is how she’d ended up making loud noises in the tiny room Katie had once earmarked as a study.

Clara didn’t seem to have a big problem with it. They were having fun, chilling, and ‘finding themselves’. In fact, over the last six months, as Louise had careered further and further away from the home and hearth she’d thought she’d shared with Max, Max and Clara got more and more relaxed about how exactly they’d got together in the first place and were practically sharing an email address. No one knew when, or if, they were coming home. Louise was dealing with it through a twin approach of martinis and dating, tiger-pouncing any man that crossed her postcode. Max’s name was best not mentioned, but sometimes – like now, when Katie got an email, it was difficult.

Hey Sis!

Clara still liked to use fonts to make her wacky and different, Katie noticed. It was like being shouted at by a Dickens novel.

HoWZIT? HOT in HERRE! Goa just amazing. Coconuts for twenty pence, xxxxx

Max says Hi to everyone back home – we’re missing you loads in London and the pouring rain! Not!

It wasn’t a nice feeling, being torn between a friend and a relative, particularly when you didn’t even have the distraction of a love life of your own to worry about.

The problem was, it seemed to get harder to raise the subject with Louise, not easier.

At first, of course, when she’d moved in with Katie, she had gone horribly pale and thin, and started her maniacal sleeping around punctuated with 2 a.m. crying jags, side by side with an understanding that one in such a fit of dispossession had to be absolved from housework, keeping regular hours, or in fact much apart from corkscrew wielding and very long scented baths.

But, as time had passed, and everything (apart from the yo-yo knickers) had seemed to ease a little, Katie found it harder and harder to be in the middle. Her sister seemed happy, but Louise still seemed terribly sad, and Katie bringing the subject up just seemed to make things worse. In some way, Katie could see, Louise blamed her for her sister’s behaviour. And whilst comprehensible, it was hardly fair. Being the only conduit between them didn’t help either. Katie thought wistfully for a moment of Clara having fun. Of course she had fun, London fun, in expensive bars, with loud nights. Loud. Having fun in London tended to be loud. Everything in London was loud; the Tube, the traffic, the bars, the shouting of arrogant young careerists showing off. Sometimes Katie really felt like a bit of peace and quiet.

Living with Louise was just about bearable. Katie was trying to be a sympathetic friend. She really was. She didn’t want to be one of those people who had you to stay in their house, then made little remarks about how to clean a grill pan and how different towels had different meanings, thus making Louise feel even worse than she was already. But she’d found it did very little to improve her general disposition towards the world.

Katie turned her attention to the pile of work on her desk. Today she was working on a new diet, which substituted chocolate-covered peanuts and cheese for every meal. Apparently once separately considered high-fat foods, it had been discovered that taken in combination and omitting all other food groups, it had a staggering effect on weight loss and had caught on like wildfire, and was called the CCPC plan, which looked really scientific and everything. Katie’s job was to minimise the coronary or acne scare stories that popped up now and again. She was busy.

She wandered into a reverie for a second about what it would be like doing press for a Forestry Commission. Then she realised she didn’t have the faintest idea. Maybe a lot of people stole the trees at Christmas time. No, hang on, that would be a matter for the police. Maybe they were trying to attract campers…to a forest in a remote part of Scotland? No, surely not. Only the intrepid would survive, she didn’t want to be responsible for deaths by hypothermia…although…she looked at the latest CCPC files and sighed.

Miko bundled into the room, her lovely face looking furious. ‘How much better-looking than you did we say I was again?’

‘Fifty to a hundred times?’

‘So he hasn’t called, why?’

‘Because you have a bad personality?’

‘I scarcely think so.’

‘Because you’re frightening?’

‘It’s 2005. ALL women are frightening.’

She examined her blood-red talon nails carefully. ‘Do you think these nails are a bit much?’

‘Do you gorge nightly on human blood?’

‘Look at me. I’m a size six. I gorge on NOTHING.’

‘Well, we’re back to the whole personality thing…’

‘Olivia wants you,’ said Miko, curtly.

‘How are you? Keeping well I hope? What did you have for breakfast this morning?’

Oh no, Olivia was in ‘I’m your boss now’ mode.

Katie had eaten the last four chocolate digestives in the flat. ‘Two bananas and a fruit smoothie,’ she said.

Olivia’s brow furrowed, but not very much. It looked suspiciously taut. ‘Smoothie? You know there’s dairy in smoothies.’

‘A whole dairy?’ asked Katie.

‘Well, we can’t be too careful. NOW.’ She placed her arms on her desk in what was meant to be body-language-speak for ‘Look at my wide stance! How approachable I am!’ This wasn’t good at all. ‘Now, you won’t believe this…it’s just the funniest thing.’

Katie’s ears pricked up. Was this going to be one of those kind of nettle-drinking sample things she got in her office that she was always stuffing down unsuspecting juniors, to check their vomiting reflexes?

‘Yes?’

Olivia’s office was full of crystals that made annoying tinkly noises whenever anyone moved even a finger, and scattered various colours in different parts of the room. Years after everyone else had moved on from Feng Shui, Olivia was still clinging on to it with the tips of her fingers.

‘We have,’ she said, opening her eyes very wide in the manner of a nursery teacher, ‘a new client!’

‘Great,’ said Katie. ‘Well done.’ She hoped it was shampoo. Her hair had been all tired and gritty recently – not entirely unlike her mood. Plus, she’d plucked a grey one out in the mirror.

‘And it’s in a completely different field to our usual one!’

Now she had her attention. Ooh, maybe it was celebrities? She saw herself suddenly being one of those barky dog PRs who sit in rooms with celebrities and growl when cheeky journalists bring up their drugs hell/adultery.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes. this is really going to put the LiWebber name on the map. It ticks all our boxes, does our bit for the environment, fills our charity requirements…oh, it’s perfect really. Of course, you know I’ve always been very in tune with the environment…I’m not surprised they came to us really…’

‘What is it, Olivia?’

Olivia spread out her hands in excitement. ‘The Fairlish Forestry Commission! The one you saw in the paper!’

Katie took a step back, felt a chair behind her legs and collapsed onto it.

‘…and, well, apparently, would you believe this, they couldn’t find anyone to take on the job. So they called us.’

Katie looked up. Hang on. She would have taken the job. Well, possibly. That wasn’t the point. The point was, that bloody Harry whatever his name was hadn’t ‘offered’ her the job. That was the point. But she’d given him her card…and now presumably he was calling to see who else was available. But if she told Olivia she’d already been up for the job without telling her, Olivia would mince her innards. Crap!

‘And, well, I spoke to Miko and she agreed with me that, well, you do seem to have been a little under the weather recently, with Louise and the mugging and everything.’

Under the weather? The weather has been FARTING on me, thought Katie savagely to herself.

‘So we thought, maybe a bit of fresh air…change of scenery for a few months…go up there and sort them out…gorgeous scenery I’ve heard…take a few photos…get our charity bit in the annual report by next year and Bob’s your uncle. What do you say? Fantastic, eh?’

‘Well, I’m not sure the outdoors is quite…I mean, my hayfever gets quite bad.’

Olivia looked up, her face instantly less beatific. ‘When I said “fantastic”, Katherine, you understand I meant “pack”.’

God, Katie hated ‘boss mode’.

Chapter Four

‘You can’t leave me too,’ said Louise, clinging to the toaster as if it were a life preserver (which, given her lack of cooking skills these days – all built up to cater for Max, all immediately abandoned – it was).

‘Yes, that’s what I’m doing,’ said Katie. ‘I’ve been planning this all along. Put the toaster down, I’m running a bath and no longer trust you.’

‘Oh God,’ said Louise, in a tone of voice that Katie recognised was gearing up to start on about the future course of her life, involving loneliness, misery, telly and gradually slipping into obesity brought on by sadness inspired TUC-biscuit blowouts. Louise put on a good face in public, but once they were back in the flat it was a different story.

‘I’m having a bath,’ said Katie heavily. ‘I have a premonition it’s going to be my last one for six months that isn’t shared with goats or something.’

‘Do you want to go?’

‘Durr! No. It was just a stupid whim at the time. Which has come right around to bite me in the arse, because now, do I have a choice? No. Is everything going great guns for me here? Not, as it happens, necessarily.’

‘Things aren’t going that well for me either,’ said Louise, sticking her finger in the Philadelphia.

‘Really? I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Where is this place?’

‘It’s on a higher latitude than Moscow.’

‘Is it pretty?’

‘If you like that kind of thing.’

‘What kind of thing?’

‘Lambs. Fresh air. Stink. That kind of thing.’

‘What kind of stink?’

‘It might have been the fresh air. Or some cow thing.’

‘Does it smell worse than the litter bins on Oxford Street on a hot day?’

‘No. It’s in Scotland, not the devil’s anus.’

‘It might be fun.’

‘I’ve been there. It is not fun. It has no cable, no Joseph, no proper coffee, and everyone up there is horrible. I know I moan about the shallowness of London life, but I’ve kind of got used to these staples.’

‘How many people did you meet?’

‘Only one. But there’s only about twelve people there anyway, so it’s a reasonable statistical sample.’

Louise stirred her coffee thoughtfully. ‘When do you have to leave?’

‘Two weeks on Monday. I don’t know if I’ll have time to knit all the waterproofs I’ll have to take.’

‘What’s the job involve?’

‘Trees. Looking after trees. Apparently trees need a PR.’

‘I thought they had Sting.’

‘He’s on tour. Anyway, he only cares about foreign trees.’

‘That’s bigo-tree.’

Katie looked at Louise. ‘That’s the first joke you’ve made in about three months.’

‘That waiter was a joke.’

‘You know, I wonder if you might just be recovering.’

‘Huh. You know, I think it might be really interesting. It’d be great to get out of this cesspit for a while,’ Louise said wistfully.

Katie suddenly had a great idea. ‘Do you know how long it takes to drive up there?’

Louise shook her head.

‘Me neither. Wanna come?’

Packing for three months in March was absolutely not easy. In London, the daffs were out in the public squares, and you could make it on a sunny afternoon with just a cardie. But according to www.middleofnowhere-weather.com, Fairlish still had six inches of snow and a wind-chill factor of minus ten.

Olivia was very grumpy that Louise was going too. She had found it very easy to get leave from her employers, who were still trying to work out if her behaviour at the Christmas party constituted sexual harassment.

‘I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone here, desperately trying to ferret out the last good-looking, rich, kind, straight man in London,’ Olivia wailed.

‘You sent me on this stupid assignment!’ said Katie.

‘Yeah, but I didn’t want you both to go.’

‘I’ll be back in a couple of days!’ said Louise indignantly.

‘But you’re either a biscuit-strewn crumbling mess or under a waiter. You’re no use at all!’

‘Well, that’s nice.’

‘I’m just saying,’ replied Olivia gruffly, ‘good luck – I’ll miss you.’

‘Well, I’ll miss you too,’ said Katie. ‘Along with electric lighting, central heating, comprehensible English, Belgo, sushi, mojitos, movie theatres, wine bars, radio, fajitas…’

‘I’ll get the drinks in,’ interrupted Olivia.

Katie’s Fiat Punto fought a brave fight, but it still took them twelve full hours, much circling around and two full bouts of crying (one and a half Louise’s, one half Katie’s, who felt that red eyes and a crack in the voice wasn’t quite as bad as Louise’s full-on tantrum on the subject of unmarked B roads, leading to an extremely long diatribe on Max’s inability to find his way anywhere which meant he was probably lost in the foothills of the Himalayas, which, Katie had thought, was exactly where she’d like to be right now, a thought she committed the profound error of voicing) to finally limp into Fairlish late that evening.

To Katie’s horror, the Forestry Commission had politely turned down Olivia’s offer to organise their accommodation and said they’d sort something out. Which in practice meant that rather than automatically booking the nicest hotel in the area and billing it to the client, Katie was somewhat at the mercy of…well, the fax she was clasping in her hand. It didn’t say anything along the lines of ‘Gleneagles’. It didn’t say anything along the lines of ‘hotel’. It said, ‘4 Water Lane. Do not arrive after 8 p.m.’.

It was 11.30 p.m. The last time they’d got out of the car, near Killiemuir, it had been so cold, Louise’s sobs had frozen in her throat. It had hurt to breathe.

The darkness was almost complete. Louise was looking out of the window, failing to spot a single road sign, whining, ‘I can’t see a thing.’

Katie was trying her best to be patient, but it was like travelling all day with a six-year-old.

‘Well, look harder. I’m just concentrating on trying not to run over any more squirrels or rats or badgers or hedgehogs or deer, OK?’

‘No need to get snitty,’ said Louise. ‘It’s not my fault you forgot to pack the night-vision goggles.’

Without warning, the Fiat dropped into a huge puddle of freezing water. The girls both screamed. Katie somehow managed to push the car on through before it stalled, and they came to a shuddering halt. They looked at each other, neither wanting to get out in the cold.

‘Where’s the torch?’ asked Louise, finally.

Katie looked at her soaking wet feet. ‘Um, I didn’t bring one.’

‘What did your dad say about driving at night without a torch?’

‘I don’t have a dad.’

‘Oh, yes, bring that up now we’re trapped in a flood in the middle of nowhere.’

Gingerly, Katie opened the door. There was definitely water running under their feet. ‘Bollocks,’ she said.

Louise gasped sharply.

‘What?’

‘There’s a light…over there.’

Sure enough, a tiny light could be seen bobbing up and down towards them.

‘Do you think it’s a rescue boat?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ said Katie, whose first thought had, in actual fact, been that it was aliens.

‘Hellaooowww!’ screeched Louise. ‘Carn you come and help us, pleayse!’

‘Could you sound a little less like the Duke of Edinburgh?’ hissed Katie. ‘Haven’t you seen An American Werewolf in London?’

‘Cooeee!’ shouted Louise.

‘What the MANKIN HELL…’ a strident voice, closely followed by the beam of a torch and an equally visible bosom, strode out of the darkness ‘…do you think you’re doing?’

An imperious nose followed the bosom, along with an expression that looked far from the welcoming Scots of tradition, with two eyebrows that wouldn’t have been entirely out of place on an old Labour minister.

Katie and Louise immediately splashed to attention.

The woman sized them up and down. ‘And you are?’

‘We’re looking for number 4 Water Lane,’ said Katie, in her best well-brought-up voice.

‘D’you think this might be Water Lane?’ said the woman, staring pointedly at their shoes.

‘Is that a yes or a no?’ replied Katie. Playing humorous word games with Attila the Bun would be all well and good if they weren’t on the brink of hypothermia.

The woman sniffed in a manner that implied that yes, it obviously was, surely even to the educationally sub-rate specimens in front of her. ‘You’ll be the London girls then.’

Katie and Louise swapped glances.

‘I thought it was quite clear that you were expected before 8.30?’ she continued.

‘It took us a while to get here. From London,’ said Katie.

‘Really? Is it far? Maybe you had to stop for cocktails and to buy some shoes on the way.’

If she hadn’t been so very, very wet and very, very tired, Katie would simply have turned around and driven all the way back home.

Number 4 Water Lane was not, as the girls had fantasised for the last two hundred miles, a tartan-festooned haven of horseshoe antiques, a stag’s head or two and a blazing open fire. It was an enormous house, shrouded in almost complete darkness, with creaks and peculiar noises emanating from different corners. It was freezing – ‘heating and hot water 7–8. Breakfast 7–8’ read the sign on the wall that Attila, whose name was in fact Mrs McClockerty, had pointed out, leading them to ponder the invention of time travel as she led them through endless gloomy corridors, pointing out a terrifyingly pristine, antimacassared floral monstrosity called the ‘residents’ lounge’. They appeared to have been billeted in the old servants’ quarters, directly under the eaves. Fortunately the lighting was terrible: Katie was sure there were cobwebs and God knew what else in the corners. The beds were single, and both mattresses and blankets were painfully thin.

‘I need the toilet,’ whimpered Louise from her bed after they’d put the light out.

‘It’s down the hall,’ whispered back Katie.

‘I’m too frightened.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’

‘Katie?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you sure we haven’t been kidnapped by white slavers and sold into service?’

‘Ssh!’

There was a short pause. ‘Have you seen that film The Others?’

‘NO!’

‘Gaslight?’

‘Goodnight Louise.’

‘Amityville?’

‘If you wet the bed, I’m telling Mrs McClockerty.’

There was a pause, then a rustle. Katie stiffened. Sure enough, the covers on her bed were being pulled back.

‘Louise!’

‘Please!’

‘Well, no funny stuff, OK?’

‘I would never fancy you even if I was gay,’ said Louise loftily. ‘I’d fancy that bird from Location Location Location.’ And, despite her avowed terrors and full bladder, she immediately fell fast asleep.

Katie wriggled a little to try to get comfortable, but it was no use. Grateful for the warm body beside her, she lay staring into the dark as the clock ticked away until morning.

Getting up the next morning proved near impossible – the room was icy and so huge that getting to their clothes seemed an epic journey, never mind the arduous trek to the bathroom. Only by holding hands, closing their eyes and shouting ‘bacon and eggs!’ could they inch their way forwards into the frigid air.

Sadly, bacon and eggs weren’t exactly forthcoming.

‘It’s continental breakfast,’ announced Mrs Mc-Clockerty, as if what is delicious-freshly-made-in-a-patisserie-under-a-heartwarming-early-Mediterranean-sun was in any way a comparable experience to the dried-out pieces of toast studded on the tray before them while the wind audibly howled around the house.

‘Two pieces only!’ she barked.

There were three other people in the dining room, all men, sitting on their own.

‘Perhaps it’s a lonely murderers’ convention,’ suggested Louise, trying in vain to warm her hands on the coffee pot.

‘It holds up Olivia’s male-female ratio theory,’ said Katie, inhaling her tea greedily. Before they’d left, Olivia had pointed out that seeing as the main industries in the region were farming, fishing, forestry and a large research centre down the road, they might be in with a bit of luck totty-wise. Although studying their fellow inmates, Katie wasn’t entirely heartened by what was on offer. One of the men was dropping crumbs all over his Aberdeen Evening Post, another was unselfconsciously exploring the inside of his nose. At the far end, Mrs McClockerty was surveying the room in silence, making sure nobody took more than the requisite number of condiments.

‘So, are we going home today?’ asked Louise brightly. ‘’Course we are!’

Katie grimaced. ‘I think I’m going to have to at least look at this job thing. Otherwise Livvy will have my farts for parts.’

‘Surely not,’ said Louise. ‘She won’t mind. This place is cruel and unusual.’

Outside, rain was throwing itself against the window as if it were trying to get their attention. Katie looked at her watch. Eight thirty.

‘I’m going to have to go,’ she said apologetically.

‘OK, I’ll get the car started,’ said Louise.

‘You’re not coming!’

Louise looked taken aback. ‘Of course I am.’

‘Of course you’re not. This is my job. I’m not walking in there like Jennifer Lopez with an entourage. They already hate me.’

‘Do they know it’s you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do they know it’s you? The person who already got turned down for the job?’

‘I did not get turned down for the job! I…declined.’

‘What? They offered it to you and you turned it down?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘By default?’

‘That’s a manner of speaking.’

‘Well, what am I going to do all day?’

‘You should have thought of that,’ said Katie sternly, ‘before you started with the “Ooh, please can I come, boo hoo hoo, blah blah”.’

Louise gave her a look.

‘OK, everyone out!’ said Mrs McClockerty. The men started shifting around, collecting his papers untidily together, in one case, and wiping his finger surreptitiously under the table in another.

Mrs McClockerty came and stood so her bosom loomed over their heads, blocking out all light. ‘You must exit the premises until 6 o’clock. This isn’t a hotel, you know.’

‘It is a hotel!’ said Katie.

‘It’s a boarding house,’ said Mrs McClockerty, as if Katie had sworn at her. The girls waited for further elucidation as to what the difference was, but none was forthcoming. The bosom swayed towards the door and vanished into the endless bowels of the house.

‘Can I hide under the seat of the car while you’re at work?’ asked Louise desperately.

‘No! You have to go explore.’

There was a pause. ‘Can I have the umbrella?’ asked Louise.

‘I forgot it,’ said Katie in a very quiet voice.

‘You forgot an umbrella when coming to the Highlands of Scotland?’ said Louise in an even quieter voice.

‘Yes,’ said Katie.

Louise sat very still for a minute. Then she stood up, slowly. ‘I will see you,’ she announced, ‘at 6 p.m.’ Then she picked up her coat, still wet from the night before, and, with a great sense of purpose and wounded pride, walked out of the big old-fashioned door. Katie watched her go for a moment, feeling guilty, then feeling annoyed that she spent so much of her life feeling guilty.

Mrs McClockerty poked her head around the door and looked pointedly at the brass clock on the wall. It was 8.40. Katie jumped up, guiltily.

Chapter Five

Katie hadn’t known what to expect of the town – she hadn’t seen much of it from the tiny railway station. But on first impressions, Katie felt happier despite herself. The rain was easing off, and there was even a hint of sun in the air, trying hard to make itself felt behind a watery cloud. The town was tiny, built around a little harbour. The houses were brightly painted and picture-postcard cosy. The town looked like it should be hosting a perky children’s television series, and, although the streets were deserted, Katie could imagine it thronged in the summer. The roads were narrow and cobbled, and a tiny church was perched on one of the hills above. The directions to the Forestry Commission indicated it was out of town, though, and so Katie reluctantly set off in the opposite direction, following the badly-faxed map.

The rain did stop, but the Punto was still having some trouble navigating the muddy roads through the thick woods. It was the first time Katie had ever driven somewhere where she could see the point of those ridiculous Land-Rover thingies, other than to transport skinny blonde women and their single children to the lycée whilst squashing cyclists in the London rush hour. Olivia, who usually cycled to work of course, always suggested that they use the bull-bars on the front of their vehicles to tie little posies of flowers to commemorate all the cyclists and pedestrians they’d killed that week whilst being too far off the ground to notice anyone and too busy doing their make-up to care.

Katie wondered how things were going to go with this Harry character. The best thing, she supposed, would be if nobody mentioned their previous encounter. After all, he had said she could have had the job if she wanted, hadn’t he? Even if grudgingly so? Maybe he wouldn’t recognise her? Surely he’d think all London girls looked the same anyway? Nervously, she smoothed down her plain black sweater and burgundy skirt. It would be fine. She would do the job and get home. Breathe fresh air. Eat…well, kippers and things, she supposed. She quickly put to the back of her mind how unhappy he would be when he found out he was paying consultancy rates rather than £24k a year.

Suddenly, she reached a clearing. As if out of nowhere, a building appeared amongst the trees. It consisted of a wood frame in a peculiar rhombus shape. The walls were sheer glass, rising diagonally outwards from the grassy forest floor. It looked exactly like what it was: the office of the forest. It was beautiful.

Katie got out of the now mud-encrusted car and took a deep breath. She could see two shadowy figures inside – presumably they could see her a lot better from the inside out. She squinted at the glass, trying to work out where the door was. She had a vision of herself walking straight into a wall and breaking her nose. Maybe she’d get sick leave and have to go straight home. And they’d give her a nose job on the NHS.

She spied the door and walked through it.

‘Hello?’ she said tentatively. There was no answer. She could hear voices, and stepped through the wood-panelled foyer.

‘Hello?’

Inside the large clean open-plan room, with a picture perfect view, two men were poring over a single newspaper.

‘Hello?’

‘PRICKWOBBLING DICKO!’ shouted one of the men suddenly. Katie recognised Harry’s voice immediately.

The other man was heavier set and his voice much more accented. ‘God, if only we had someone to deal with the bloody papers, like.’

‘Ta dah!’ exclaimed Katie.

Both the men whirled around, startled.

‘Yes?’ said Harry, his dark eyes flashing at her in a cross ‘can I help you?’ kind of a way.

She walked towards him, smiling confidently. ‘Hello, I’m Katie Watson.’

Harry stopped and looked her up and down, clearly trying to place her from somewhere.

‘Olivia at LiWebber sent me,’ she said. ‘For a temporary assignment.’

‘Hello,’ said the older man. ‘I’m…’

‘I remember you!’ said Harry. ‘You’re the girl that came up on the train!’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I think I asked them to send me somebody else. I’m sure I did. Didn’t I?’

Katie decided to ignore this, and shook hands with the other man.

‘Derek Cameron,’ he said. ‘I’m the…’ he coughed suddenly. ‘Executive assistant. Which isn’t like a secretary or anything. Nothing like it.’

‘Derek, make us both a coffee, while I sort this out,’ said Harry loftily.

‘Sure thing, boss,’ replied Derek, disappearing into the back.

‘Well,’ said Harry, sitting back in his armchair and eyeing her carefully. ‘Uh, welcome.’

‘Thank you,’ said Katie. He stared at her again, then blinked. With his dark eyes and thick curly hair, Katie suddenly realised who he reminded her of – Gordon Brown. When he was younger and thinner. Much younger and much thinner, she thought. But there was the same brooding, distracted air and lack of speaking terms with combs.

‘Find your way up all right from the big smoke?’

‘Yes,’ said Katie, ‘although we’re not staying in a very nice place.’

‘Really?’ he leaned over his desk, suddenly looking interested. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

Katie described at length the horrid food, scary demeanour and general grimness of the Water Lane guest-house. About halfway through, realising that Harry was still staring at her, she remembered suddenly that there were only about nine people living in the town and he must know all of them.

‘…so, but, actually, apart from that, it’s lovely, great and we’re very happy,’ she finished in a gush.

Harry was quiet.

‘She’s your mum, isn’t she?’

‘Not quite.’

‘Gran?’

‘Aunt, actually. Brought me up after my mum died.’

Uncharitably, Katie’s first thought was, ‘well, that explains a lot’. Her second was, ‘how annoying, having that to throw in every time you wanted to win a conversation’. Fortunately it was her third that actually came out of her mouth. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ said Harry. ‘And she couldn’t cook then either, to the best of my recollection.’

Katie stared at the floor, her face burning.

‘Well, anyway,’ said Harry finally. ‘I find it’s probably best to…buy your own sheets, stuff like that. There’s a woman in town gives you a discount if you tell her where you’re staying.’

‘Thanks,’ said Katie, thinking it best not to mention that the plans she and Louise had discussed that morning included moving out as soon as humanly possible, burning the place to the ground, then salting the land.

‘So, what’s my first assignment?’

Derek returned, bearing three cracked mugs bearing pictures of trees on the side. They said ‘Don’t commit TREEson, come see us this SEASON’.

These people need help, thought Katie.

‘The prickwobbling dicko,’ prompted Derek.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Harry. ‘Iain Kinross. Iain Kinross of the West Highland Times. Yes, yes. Iain Kinross.’

‘Our evil arch-nemesis,’ added Derek helpfully.

Harry brandished the paper and threw it down on the desk. ‘You have to sort him out.’

Katie picked up the paper.

‘He’s pursuing a vendetta against us,’ said Harry gravely. The headline read ‘Further Deciduous Cuts’. It meant nothing to Katie.

‘He writes that we’re killing all the trees.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘We start by weeding out the gay and disabled trees.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Derek.

‘No,’ said Katie, who’d come to this conclusion on her own.

‘Yes!’ said Harry indignantly. ‘Wages paid by me, both of you. Now, you –’ he pointed at Katie ‘– go into town. Introduce yourself to Kinross. Simper a bit, you know, do that girlie thing. Toss your hair a little.’

‘I will not,’ said Katie. ‘I’m not a horse.’

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘Just tell him you’re new here and that you were kind of hoping he’d go easy on you until you’ve settled in.’

‘That’s not the kind of thing I’ve usually found works on journalists,’ said Katie. ‘Especially not evil ones.’

‘Well, what’s your great plan then, Miss Whoever-you-are?’

Katie didn’t know, but given the atmosphere of outright hostility, she was on Iain Kinross’s side pretty much already. ‘Let me go and talk to him,’ she said, trying to sound professional.

‘Exactly. Bit of the old eyelash-fluttering. See, Derek, I told you a lassie would help things around here.’

‘Of course, boss.’

‘They’re like Mr Burns and Smithers.’

Katie had run into Louise with comparative ease, given that there were only three streets in Fairlish, and only one person on any of them.

‘Great,’ said Louise. ‘I’m starving. Let’s cut our losses and run. We could be in Glasgow in five hours, and it rocks.’

‘I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,’ said Katie, looking around her. ‘Do you know, Starbucks would clean up around here.’

‘Who from? Mrs Miggin’s pie shop?’ Louise pointed to a little bakers-cum-teashop. It still had the original round glass panes in its tiny windows, and was painted pink. It looked cosy and welcoming, with condensation fogging up the glass. ‘Why isn’t it that easy? They can take the high road, and we’ll take the low road, and we’ll be shopping at LK Bennett’s before them.’

The heavy bakery doors clanged as they walked in. The shop was hot, steamy and full of old men chattering away in a musical brogue. Everyone fell silent immediately. Katie and Louise were about the same height as most of them.

‘Do you sell coffee?’ Louise asked the friendly-looking red-haired chap behind the counter, which would have been fine if she hadn’t felt the need to over-enunciate in a very posh-sounding way while making the international signal for coffee by shaking imaginary beans in her hand, and looking a bit of a Gareth Hunt in the process.

Alongside the chap there was a tallish, angular young girl, with a sulky expression and a face that was quite possibly rather beautiful, if it were not crowned by a ridiculous pie-crust, olde-world elasticated bonnet and a murderous expression.

‘Aw, caawww-feee?’ she said, shaking her hand in the same stupid gesture Louise had used. ‘Ah dunno. Mr MacKenzie, dweez sell CAAWWW-FEEE?’

Mr MacKenzie looked at the two girls with some sympathy. ‘Don’t be stupid, Kelpie,’ he said. ‘Serve theys.’

Kelpie gave the all-purpose teenage tut and walked over to a silver pot in the corner, slopping out two measures of instant into polystyrene cups before adding half a pint of milk and two sugars to each without asking them.

‘Anything else for you girls?’ said Mr MacKenzie pleasantly. ‘Macaroni pie?’

‘Let me just check my Atkins list,’ said Louise. Katie kicked her.

‘Umm.’

Nothing in the case laid out in front of them looked in the least bit familiar. There were pale brown slabs of what might have been fudge, only harder, lots of circular pies with holes poked in the middle of them which seemed, on closer examination, to hold anything from rhubarb to mince. There were gigantic, mutant sausage rolls and what may or may not have been very flat Cornish pasties. But both girls were starving. Suddenly Katie’s eyes alighted on the scones.

‘Two…um, of those please.’ She couldn’t remember how to pronounce the word. Was it scawn or scoone?

‘The macaroons?’

‘No, um, the…’

‘French cake?’

What on earth was a French cake?

‘The scoones,’ said Louise. Katie winced. There was a pause, then everyone in the shop started laughing.

‘Of course,’ said the man serving, who had a kind face. ‘Would that be a roosin scoone or a choose scoone?’

Maybe not that kind.

Louise and Katie found a bench in a tiny sliver of public park overlooking the harbour. The boats were coming back in, even though it was only ten in the morning. They looked beautiful and timeless, their jaunty red and green painted hulls outlined against the dark blue water. Katie was throwing most of her (delicious) scone to the cawing seagulls.

‘Now I’ve got to find some complete stranger and try and intimidate them.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Louise. ‘A great change from your usual job. Of finding complete strangers and licking their arses until they buy something.’

‘That is not what PR is about,’ said Katie. ‘Except in, you know, the specifics.’

Louise kicked her heels. ‘What do you think people do around here for fun?’

‘Torture the foreigners,’ said Katie. She nodded her head towards the baker’s. Kelpie was heading over their way with two cronies. She had shaken off her ridiculous pie-crust hat to reveal a thick head of wavy hair with four or five rainbow-hued colours streaked through it, and taken out a packet of cigarettes. Even from fifty feet away, it was clear that she was doing an impression of Katie and Louise.

‘We’re big news around these here parts,’ said Katie. ‘I think we’d better make ourselves scarce, before we get bullied by a pile of twelve-year-olds. I’m going to find this Iain Kinross character. Sounds like some anal old baldie geezer who sits in his bedsit writing angry letters to the Daily Mail. He’ll be putty in my hands.’

The three girls had seen them now; Kelpie was pointing them out. They were screaming with laughter in an over-exaggerated way.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Louise. ‘Not without me. They’ll flay me alive.’

‘They’re harmless,’ said Katie as they both got up from the bench and started to back away.

‘I don’t care,’ said Louise. ‘Take me with you, please.’

‘I can’t!’

‘Of course you can! Just say I’m your…PA.’

‘I’m not paying you.’

‘Oh my God, you’re a true Scottish person already,’ said Louise.

‘I’d like a SSSCCCCOOOOOOOONNNNE,’ came from the other side of the park, carried on the wind.

‘OK,’ said Katie. ‘But you’d better keep your mouth shut.’

‘A SSSCCCCOOOOOOOONNNNE!’

It took them a while to find the offices of the West Highland Times, situated up a tiny alleyway off the main street of old grey stone buildings, which hosted a post office, a fishmongers, a kind of broom handle/vacuum cleaner bits and bobs type of place, a Woolworths and sixteen shops selling pet rocks and commemorative teaspoons. They looked very quiet at this time of year.

The small oak door was set into a peculiar turret on the edge of a house made of a particularly windworn granite. It was studded with large dark bolts, and only a tiny brass plaque set low on the left-hand side identified it. There didn’t appear to be a bell, so, taking the initiative, Katie bowed her head and crept up the spiral staircase. Louise, whispering crossly under her breath at the exercise involved, followed her.

A little old man with grey hair sat at the top in a small room with an open door leading into the main body of the building. Katie could glimpse computers, typewriters and masses of paper beyond, and hear the regular dins and telephone calls of a newsroom.

They were not greeted with a welcoming smile.

‘Did ye’s no knock?’

Louise screwed up her face. Was no one going to be friendly to them around here?

‘Sorry?’ said Katie politely. ‘Hello there. I’m from the Forestry Commission. I’d like to see Iain Kinross please.’

‘He’s busy.’

‘How do you know?’ said Louise.

‘Shut up Louise,’ said Katie, and motioned to her friend to sit in a chair, awkwardly positioned around the curve of the wall.

‘I’m sure he won’t be too busy to see me,’ said Katie. She’d dealt with tougher hacks than this. ‘Could you tell him I’ve come from Harry Barr’s office?’

‘In that case, he’s busy for ever,’ said the man.

Katie heard a snort come from Louise. ‘I’ve got for ever,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll just stand here and wait until he comes out. Or in.’

‘You cannae do that,’ said the man. ‘I’ll…I’ll call security.’

‘Unless your security’s name is Kelpie, you’re not going to scare me with that,’ said Katie. ‘My name is Katie Watson and I’ve come from the Forestry Commission. Please just tell him I’m here.’

The man looked at her, then turned back to his computer. ‘He’s busy,’ he muttered in the tone of somebody feeling they definitely weren’t being paid enough to take this kind of abuse.

‘Yes, busy slagging off my employer,’ said Katie. ‘Let me see him!’

‘No!’

The door to the newsroom finally banged open.

‘Archie, Archie, can ah no get a wee bit of peace and quiet in here?’ said an amused-sounding voice. ‘I’m never going to win my Pulitzer with this racket, am I?’

Katie looked up. The owner of the voice, with its gentle Highland burr, was tall with green eyes, untidy curly brown hair and a mouth that looked as though it was permanently teetering on the edge of a grin. He turned to face them.

‘What can I do for you? Let me tell you, if it’s for prize cattle, you’re swing out o’ luck.’

The man on the desk gave Katie a look which clearly read ‘I am now going to hate you for ever.’

‘I heifer feeling you’re not going to like it,’ said Katie, pushing past the now incandescently annoyed assistant.

The green-eyed man opened his arms in a gesture of surrender. ‘What about your friend?’ he said, looking over at Louise. Louise flashed him a beaming smile.

‘She’ll be fine,’ said Katie, storming into the room beyond. Then she stopped suddenly. What she’d imagined to be a full and busy newsroom was really quite small, about fifteen feet long. There were three desks, one empty, one containing another very old man talking quietly down the phone, and one clearly belonging to the man beside her. In the corner was an old-fashioned record player, playing, at full volume, a sound effects track of typing, telephoning, shouting…

‘You’re really not meant to be in here,’ said the young man with a sigh.

Katie stared at the record player and back to him.

‘It’s for advertising,’ he said apologetically. ‘That goes through Mr Beaumont there, but not everyone has a telephone and some people like to pop in on market day and

‘You want them to think there’s a million people working here.’

‘Working for the good of the town.’ The man’s green eyes danced mischievously. ‘Well, you’ve scooped us. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the local paper will run it.’

Katie smiled and put out her hand. ‘Well, I’d like to say your secret’s safe with me…’

He took it and bowed low. ‘Yes, bonny English maid?’

‘But I’m afraid I’ve been sent here by Harry Barr.’

He dropped her hand as if it were a live snake. ‘Och, you have not now.’ He looked around as if for assistance.

‘You have to be Iain Kinross.’

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Um, no. That was him out on the front desk. Bit of a dour type.’

He paced across the room and sat down on the comfortable green leather swivel chair in front of his desk. He had an antiquated computer in front of him, and a rather more used-looking typewriter; small Stanley knives and tubes of paper glue littered the tabletop and floor, and piles of paper filled the shelves around his desk. He squinted at her, and pushed back a rogue lock of hair. ‘You don’t look like a rottweiler.’

‘I’m the new forestry PR,’ said Katie.

‘Oh God,’ said Iain, and, suddenly, he disappeared below his desk.

‘Are you being sick?’ ventured Katie, when he didn’t reappear.

‘No, uh no.’ He emerged. ‘There’s a mouse in here somewhere. Thought I saw it in one of the coffee cups.’

‘One of the coffee cups?’ said Katie. ‘How many do you have under there?’

‘One,’ he said quickly. ‘You don’t want a coffee do you?’

‘I sooo don’t.’

‘Good. That’s good. So, I suppose Harry has told you lots of horrible things about me?’

‘No.’

His open face brightened. ‘Really? That’s good.’

‘Just that you were a “prickwobbling dicko”.’

It fell again. ‘Oh.’

‘And that he’s not killing all the trees.’

At this, Iain leaned forward. ‘Look. Are you a country girl?’

‘Yes,’ said Katie quickly. Well, she’d nearly gone camping on the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme once. It wasn’t her fault that it had started raining and her mother had given in to her noisy and tremulous tantrum and let her stay at home and watch Dr Who and drink hot chocolate instead. Katie had picked up a thing or two from her canny younger sister.

‘OK well, you should understand then. If they’re going to cross-fertilise from the GM firs just because they’re gaining on their EU dispensation, it’s going to be no surprise to anyone when they start to lose the red and have yet another heron panic’ He snorted at the ludicrousness of Harry’s position.

‘Heroin? Really? Up here? Well, I suppose it is Scotland,’ said Katie.

Iain stared at her suspiciously. ‘OK, well, let’s pretend I was explaining to you as if, for one minute, you weren’t a country girl. Just for fun.’

Katie got her notebook out.

‘I mean, if you keep planting one type of tree instead of lots of different types, you’re going to have to understand why animals who like lots of mixed habitats might move on. Which then affects the environment and turns back on the plantations themselves.’

‘That sounds terrible,’ said Katie. It did sound terrible. Though she didn’t know why.

‘It is,’ said Iain, pounding his fist on the desk, which made lots of suspicious-sounding clinking china noises. ‘That’s why you…’

‘Katie,’ said Katie.

‘That’s why you, Katie, have to help me. That man is killing trees.’

‘Yes!’ said Katie, fired up with zeal. ‘Oh, hang on. No! I can’t! I work for him.’

‘This isnae about “me” or “him”,’ said Iain, gazing into her eyes. ‘This is for the trees, Katie.’

She looked at him for a second, then the moment was broken by the low trill of a mobile phone. A nice masculine ring, she couldn’t help thinking.

‘Kinross. Yeah? Oh, cock. Right, right, OK.’ He snapped it shut. ‘I’m so sorry. I have to go. Some stupid sheep’s just had octuplets and it’ll probably make the front page. Drink tonight?’

The invitation was so direct, Katie didn’t even see it coming and wasn’t sure what it meant. Was it a date or a continuation of their business conversation? She shouldn’t really be fraternising with the enemy, should she – even if he was hot? On the other hand, the alternative was huddling under two sheets in a hayloft with Louise, so she wasn’t in a position to be picky.

‘Um, OK. Where?’

Iain, who was now shrugging his way into a parka, laughed. ‘Well, take your pick. There’s the Rum and Thump or the Mermaid or…nope, that’s it.’

‘The Mermaid, please,’ said Katie fervently. The name sounded a bit more appealing.

‘Got a taste for the wild side have we? OK, see you at seven. Remember –’ he indicated the audio-challenged room sternly ‘– tell no one. Or Mr Beaumont will be on you like a cougar.’

The aged Mr Beaumont declined to look up from his whispered conversation on the telephone. Or maybe he couldn’t.

‘A cougar,’ warned Iain again. Then he was gone.

Katie trailed behind him weakly as he swept out of the turret. She could see Louise’s plaintive face follow him down the stairway as she emerged. Louise raised her eyes expectantly.

‘I have to go back to the office,’ said Katie, officiously. In fact, she needed five minutes by herself to think.

‘Well?’ asked Louise as they exited the small building, pausing only to give the receptionist evils.

Katie was feeling slightly more understanding. ‘Well what?’

‘Well what what? Did you just see that guy?!’

‘Iain?’

‘Ooh, yes, Iain, of course. You know him so well now. Yes, how was Iain, your husband. Iain. Everyone likes Iain. Iain and Katie.’

‘Shut up Louise,’ said Katie, trying to swallow down a blush.

‘Well spill then. Jeez, the first hot, non-psychotic male we’ve seen in months and now you’re trying to pretend you’re Joan of Arc’

‘Well, he seems all right,’ conceded Katie. ‘First person we’ve met so far that didn’t hate us on sight anyway.’

‘That’s good,’ said Louise. ‘Definitely, that’s a good sign.’ She futilely pulled the collar of her Karen Millen coat up against the stiff breeze coming in from the sea. ‘Christ. You’d have thought people would have realised it was cold up here.’

‘They did,’ said Katie as they looked out across the bay. ‘That’s why there’s so few of them. You have to admit, it’s pretty though.’

‘The South of France is pretty,’ mused Louise. ‘I’m amazed it’s never occurred to them to just go there.’

Katie turned back towards the car. ‘Well, there’s no parking problems.’

‘Can I sit in your car all afternoon?’

‘Yes. And by the way, Iain asked me out for a drink tonight.’

Louise squealed. ‘You bitch! You cast-iron bitch!’

By a tremulous stroke of bad luck, around the cobbled corner at that exact moment came Kelpie and her two cronies. They stared at each other for a moment. Then hurried away in barely concealed hysterics.

‘CAAARRRRSSSTTTTT AYRRRON BEEETCH!’ echoed up and down the high street.

‘I’m actually glad to know we’ve doubled the entertainment available in this town in such a short space of time,’ said Katie, unlocking the car. ‘We should sell tickets.’

‘Well?’ Harry barked, somewhat rudely. He seemed preoccupied, eating a large home-made sandwich. Derek was nowhere to be seen. Katie was starving and watched him munch away, salivating. Carelessly, he ripped off a piece of his sandwich and threw it on the floor. Before Katie had time to object, there was a lazy snapping sound. Leaning over the desk, Katie saw the most beautiful black Labrador stretched out at his feet.

‘Ooh, lovely doggie,’ said Katie, before she could help herself. Harry looked at her as if she’d just insulted his mother (which of course, she’d already managed earlier).

‘Francis isn’t a “doggie”,’ said Harry, spluttering crumbs. ‘He’s a working animal.’

Francis didn’t look anything like a working animal, unless he was a member of a particularly strong trade union. He batted his long eyelashes at her twice, then fell asleep.

‘Sorry,’ said Katie. ‘Does he bite?’

‘Yes, that’s the kind of work he does,’ said Harry scathingly. ‘He bites ditzy PR girls. Got his paws full around here.’

‘You’re a very hostile person,’ said Katie. ‘Is it the sandwich?’

For once, Harry looked nonplussed. He soon regained his sangfroid. ‘What did Kinross say?’

‘I think you may have something of an image problem,’ said Katie.

‘In English?’

‘Um, he says…’ she consulted her notebook urgently, ‘that there’s an issue with biodiversity, herons, food chain implications, blah blah blah…basically you’re killing all the trees.’

‘Typical!’ said Harry furiously. ‘I’m going to kill that little prick.’

‘And we come back to the image problem.’

‘OK,’ said Harry. ‘Now you see our problem. So, what are you going to do about that little shit?’

This was Katie’s moment. She was usually pretty good at the client pitch of how they were going to find the USP and work it to their point of view, then extend that point of view throughout the nation. Although usually facing her across the table were excited haircare product manufacturers and the implication was that she could get it about that Jennifer Aniston used their gunk. She wasn’t used to trying to convince a homicidal tree-hugger and his gently snoring dog.

‘Well, first, I think we need to have a meeting. Have a frank and fearless exchange of views. Really get to grips with what the underlying misunderstandings are. Maybe over a nice lunch somewhere. Then…’

‘Well, that’s absolutely out of the question,’ said Harry. ‘Next.’

‘There’s nowhere to get a nice lunch?’

‘Well, that too. But I hate that lying son of a bitch.’

‘Why?’

Katie was excitedly picking over the possibilities in her head. There must be a girl involved, surely? Hearts broken? Ooh, maybe they were long-lost brothers? TWINS, bitter rivals, born on the same day, to grow up to strive over the heart and soul of the town, nay, the very Highlands themselves…

‘That’s none of your business,’ said Harry, heading out of the door.

‘He’s such a grumpy bastard,’ moaned Katie later, back at their digs.

‘He really does sound like Gordon Brown. Are you sure he’s not a bit romantic and rugged?’

Louise was putting make-up on, thus intruding on Katie’s date by insinuation whilst pretending to be simply trying out new lipstick. She’d managed to find some candles with which to light their dank room, which, although flattering, was forcing them to apply lipstick in the style of Coco the Clown.

‘No, retarded. He’s clearly got some kind of big gay crush on Iain.’

‘Haven’t we all?’ Louise circled some rouge on her cheeks.

‘You’re not coming, you know.’

‘Just a quick drink. Please. I’ve seen the visitors’ lounge here.’

‘What’s it like?’

Louise shuddered. ‘There was an old man sitting in the corner watching University Challenge. He didn’t look up when I walked in. I think he was dead and ossifying. Oh, and they can’t get Channel Five.’

‘Big whoop.’

‘…or 4. And ITV is called Grampian and BBC2 is in foreign.’

‘What do you mean it’s in foreign?’

‘I don’t know, do I? It looks like Postman Pat and then they all go “Grbbrrtggtthh tht ht ht th thvvvvv”.’

‘Interesting. But still, no.’

‘Do you love this guy?’

‘No!’

‘Do you love me?’

‘That is Very Unfair.’

‘You dragged me up here.’

‘You forced yourself on me!’

‘I did not! And…’ Louise pouted her bottom lip in a way Katie recognised both from primary school (natural) and secondary (fake and put on for boys and suggestible male teachers alike). ‘…I’m going through a difficult time. I thought you of all people would understand, seeing as it’s your sister that…’

Katie put her hands over her ears. ‘La la la, not listening! OK. Well, maybe there’ll be another man there for you to talk to.’

‘Are you serious? Are you really considering trying to get off with someone you might have to work against for the next eight months? Wow, you’re very brave.’

Katie hadn’t looked at it this way at all. In fact, ever since Iain had grasped her hand in his, her insides had been on something of a repeater track, like a scrambled record, which went ‘green eyes green eyes snog snog yum yikes snog snog green’, repeated ad infinitum. It didn’t really give her brain much room to process any other information. The practical consequences of the matter – that they were in a very small village, that he may well be married and that whatever the outcome she was almost certainly going to have to see him every day – had faded into the background of the insistent beat of her groin reminding her she hadn’t had sex for five months.

She pretended to give it serious consideration. ‘There are plenty of people who’ve slept with people they’ve worked with and it’s turned out great,’ she said decisively. ‘Don’t you think?’

Louise looked at her as if she was holding a dangerous animal. ‘Umm…’

‘Come on. What about…’ Alas, all that flooded Katie’s mind at that moment was the memory that Louise had met Max when she’d been briefly working at his office. Suddenly, she had a mental picture of her and Louise in fifty years’ time, with her still treading on eggshells all the time. It was a sad fact that Clara’s act had changed not only Katie and her relationship but Katie and Louise’s too. ‘Ouf,’ she said.

‘Come on,’ said Louise, changing the subject. ‘I hope you’re not wearing your pulling knickers.’

‘I didn’t even bring my pulling knickers,’ said Katie as they braced themselves against the wind outside the front door of Water Lane. ‘I just brought my thermal knickers.’

‘Maybe they find that sexy up here,’ said Louise. ‘Brrr.’

Chapter Six

One would have thought, given the size of the town, that it would be easy to find one of its two pubs, but after stumbling up and down cobbled stairways for fifteen minutes in a howling gale, they had to concede this would not in fact be the case. Louise shouting ‘taxi’, and standing in the road with her hand up very quickly ceased to be amusing too. At last, panting and red-cheeked, they collapsed down a narrow stairway near the harbour and spotted a tiny doorway with light and heat and smoke exuding from the tiny open window. It looked immeasurably welcoming, and a ceramic statue of a mermaid adorned the wall, the centrepiece of a mosaic of pretty shells.

‘Ooh,’ said Louise, excited.

Katie tentatively pushed open the door into the hubbub of warmth and heat. At first it was hard to get her bearings. The pub was crammed with people, but actually it was little more than a small room. There was a roaring fire at one end, surrounded by strange-looking bellows and brass implements, red velvet stools on the wooden floor around old pitted tables, a dartboard that looked positively dangerous in such a tiny space and an old-fashioned bar, with golden bar taps gleaming, and large optics clinging to the back wall. Furious fiddle and whistle music was playing.

There were people everywhere, on every available seat, leaning against the bar, hovering around the fire. A couple of dogs dozed blissfully under bar stools.

There wasn’t a single woman there.

The room gradually fell silent as Katie and Louise hung by the door, taking it all in. There were tall men, short men, thin men, fat men. Rough-looking fishermen, with tattoos on their knuckles and salt in their hair. Intense-looking techie men with specs, rucksacked travellers. A couple of tweedy young bufton-tuftons at the bar who could have been (and were) the local laird having a pint with the local vet. Prosperous-looking farmers, furtive-looking labourers. Bald, ruddy country men, withered old men. Men everywhere.

Finally, after a long pause, Louise leaned over to Katie. ‘Is this my surprise party? Or heaven?’

‘Come in if you’re coming then,’ came a voice. ‘Don’t let the weather in noo.’

Somebody said something the girls couldn’t make out, and there came a hearty guffaw from the back. Stiffening, Katie eventually took a small step forward.

Behind the bar was the most extraordinary gentleman. He was precisely the height of the bar itself, with three tufts of hair, one on either side and one on the middle of his head, and his cheeks were ruddy. He looked like a garden gnome.

Space cleared at the bar for them instantly, and Katie and Louise had the uncomfortable experience of settling themselves gracefully on stools whilst being eagerly watched by every single person in the room. Katie had scanned as many faces as she dared without looking as if she was up for trade, but there was no sign of Iain. Surely if he was there he would have leaped up immediately anyway. She smoothed down her skirt, wondering if perhaps her prized Kenzo Japanese-style skirt was pushing it a bit for in here. Everyone else’s clothing appeared to have holes in it too, but not for fashionable reasons.

‘What can I get you lassies?’ asked the miniature barman. Katie had been going to order a vodka tonic, but didn’t want to put the barman in a difficult position vis-à-vis reaching the optics.

‘White wine please.’

‘Same for me please,’ said Louise.

‘Ah, foreigners,’ said the man, but not in an unfriendly way. He ducked behind the bar and started shifting through what sounded like many bottles and kegs. ‘Now…wine, wine, wine. I know we had it in here somewhere.’

‘I don’t know whether to be over the moon or scared shit-free,’ whispered Louise. ‘It’s like a cross between The Box of Delights and The Accused.’

‘Sssh!’ said Katie as the barman straightened up, beaming and holding up a sticky, dusty bottle of something so old its label had peeled off. It was less white wine than a kind of rusty yellow, and half empty, with a screw top. There was a crust around the top.

‘That looks lovely,’ said Katie politely.

‘Is that Feather’s sample bottle?’ came a masculine voice behind them. ‘Bloody been looking for that for months.’

The tiny publican’s eyes widened. ‘It is too, you know.’

A huge beefy hand reached over their heads and hit Louise on the ear.

‘Oww,’ said Louise. ‘Sorry, I forgot I had an invisible head.’

‘I’ve just stopped you drinking horse piss,’ said the voice. ‘I’d have thought you would have shown a bit more gratitude.’

The girls turned around on their stools. A tall, chunky man with a pink, florid face stood in front of them, in a ratty old tweed jacket.

‘Really?’ said Louise. ‘Or is that the worst chat-up line ever invented?’

The man blinked twice, then smiled. ‘It belongs to Fitz’s mare. ’Course, you’re more than welcome to find out through empirical testing. Lachlan, get us a couple of glasses.’

‘Right away,’ said Lachlan, and busied himself at the back of the bar.

‘I don’t want to come on like a health and safety inspector,’ said Katie. ‘But why are we being served horse piss in a bar? Is it like, a hazing ritual?’

‘I’m sure Lachlan just forgot,’ said the man. ‘Or I forgot to pick it up.’ He took the bottle and put it down by his briefcase, then held out his hand. Both the girls declined to shake it.

‘Craig MacPhee. I’m the vet around here.’

‘Yeah? Or are you just taking the piss?’ said Louise. ‘Ha aha aha.’

He smiled. ‘Can I buy you a real drink?’

‘Yes,’ said Louise promptly.

‘Thank you,’ said Katie. The normal hubbub had restored itself to the pub, as the two women ordered vodka tonics (Lachlan had a little step behind the bar, so it wasn’t difficult at all).

It was a quarter past eight, and still no sign of Iain. Katie sipped her drink as Louise pestered Craig as to whether there was more to vetting than horse piss and sticking your hands up a cow’s bottom.

Finally, the little door pinged to announce another customer’s arrival, and it was Iain, his collar turned up against the chill, his lovely green eyes roaming the room as he hung up his coat, to general murmurings of welcome.

‘Lovely girls! You both came!’ he said as he approached the bar, looking as if they were the most beautiful creatures he’d ever seen.

‘Hey,’ Katie said.

‘I hope that’s vodka or gin or something,’ he said. ‘I was going to warn you, this isn’t much of a wine town. Don’t know what you sophisticated London ladies drink.’

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