I sit bolt upright in bed, my chest tight. I still feel drunk from the red wine. I rub my eyes. It’s got to have been a fox crying I heard, or an owl. The only sound reaching my ears is my breath. The night remains silent. There’s no way I’m going to be able to get back to sleep until I’ve found out what made that noise. I get up, the floorboards creaking under my weight. I edge over to my door. It’ll have been an animal, that’s all. There’s nothing to worry about.

I open my door.  

‘Grace.’

My head shoots up. It’s Oliver, he’s standing outside his bedroom door, tying his dressing gown into a knot.

‘You scared me,’ I say, holding my hand against my chest. ‘I heard a noise, was it you?’ Perhaps he might’ve had a bad dream and woke up screaming, there’ve been times when that’s happened to me in the past.  

He shakes his head. ‘I heard it too; I was just seeing if I could find out what it was. I thought you might’ve been in trouble.’

'It could only have come from outside,’ I say, motioning towards the door.

‘Give me one sec,’ he says. He returns to his room and makes his way back out, carrying a torch; he flicks it on, the light flooding the room around us. At least there still isn’t the sternness in his voice there was at dinner. ‘Come on.’

Oliver opens the door. We step out into the cool night air. The long grass around the side of the annexe flicks backwards and forwards in the breeze. Oliver stops dead in his tracks, making me almost walk into him. He’s seen something.

‘What is it?’ I ask, my breath catching in my throat.

Oliver breaks into a run, his shoes stamping into the gravel pathway. It’s then I catch sight of the black mass on the ground by the back of the house, my stomach lurches.