The man was standing watching her quite openly about twenty-five feet away. She hadn’t seen him arrive; hadn’t heard his footsteps. Hadn’t had any warning of his presence at all. She drew in her breath sharply, part of her mind doing a lightning calculation as to how quickly she could get back to the car and lock herself in, if indeed she could outrun him at all, the other part searching out his face, half turned towards her, and finding no threat there at all.

She took a deep breath. Help was after all what she had been looking for. Maybe he had a phone that worked. Maybe he had come from a nearby croft and had a can or two of diesel stashed away that she could borrow.

She smiled uncertainly. ‘I didn’t expect to see anyone out here,’ she called. In spite of herself her voice sounded nervous. She took a deep breath and moved a step towards him. ‘It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it. Except that I’ve been stupid and just about run out of fuel…’

He didn’t move. His eyes, she realised, were looking past her down the hill towards the sea.

She took another step forward. ‘Is there any chance you can help me?’

Shadows were chasing across the heather towards her. She glanced up and saw a wrack of cloud moving tentative fingers across the moon’s face. In another moment it would be hidden. She looked back at the man, but he had gone. Where he had been standing there was nothing but empty road bordered on either side by grasses and rocks and heather. Behind her the two Scots pine were the only landmarks in the empty landscape.

She gasped in dismay. ‘Where are you? Come back! Please, I need your help -’ Her voice trailed away. Had he ever been there at all? Had he been a mere trick of the light? But she had been able to see him clearly, his face, his loose open-neck shirt, the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, his rough trousers, tucked into serviceable boots, his untidy hair, his gentle expression, the high cheek bones, the sad shadowed eyes.

‘Please, come back!’ She found herself turning round, staring out into the distance.

And then she saw him again. He had moved away from her into the heather. He turned, and she saw him nod his head as if urging her to follow. She shrugged and cautiously she stepped after him, finding a narrow deer track through the tangled heather stems.

The croft nestled in a hollow out of sight of the road. Single-storeyed, roofed with turf, it lay quietly in the moonlight, inside a square of dry stone walling. At right angles to it stood a byre. He moved ahead of her through the gap in the wall and led her round behind the byre where someone had parked an old tractor. Next to it there were a couple of rusty cans.

‘Is it diesel? My car takes diesel.’ But of course it would be if it was for the tractor. Stooping she lifted one of the cans and shook it. It was empty. She shook the other and there was a reassuring splashing from inside. After a slight struggle she managed to unscrew the rusted top and she sniffed. Diesel.

‘Thank you so much. I promise I’ll return it.’ She turned back towards the croft.

He had gone. The door was closed, the windows dark. She frowned, then she shrugged. Obviously he did not want thanks for his good deed.

Retracing her steps with difficulty through the darkness she lugged the rusty old can back towards the road, struggling through the tangled heather and soft lumpy grass until her feet once more found the rough metalled track. Behind her the shadows were lightening. The cloud had gone. The moonlight returned. Somewhere a fox barked once and was silent.

The fear when it hit her was all encompassing. Suddenly she was ice cold and shaking; her stomach lurched and her throat tightened. The palms of her hands were clammy with terror. Something was terribly wrong. The whole landscape was out of synch. In the cold moonlight it had lost its velvet softness and was hard, two-dimensional. Threatening. For a moment she couldn’t move; she couldn’t breathe; and then it was all over. She felt a breath of wind on her cheek and then another and behind her the trees began to whisper reassurance. She was almost back at the wood when she glanced over her shoulder one last time. The countryside was empty.

With shaking hands she unscrewed the fuel can and praying that it was indeed diesel and that it wouldn’t be too rusty, she began to pour. When it was empty she put the old can in the boot. She intended to refill it and return it but in the meantime she wanted to go home.

The phone was flashing a message when at last Ruth let herself into the flat. It was daylight, although it was still early, and sunbeams were warming the polished floor as she threw down her keys and punched the message button.

‘Ruth, darling, I am so sorry. It was a huge mistake. Not what you think. Please. We must talk. Pick up the phone.’

She shook her head sadly and walked across the room towards the bedroom. It was empty. The whole flat was empty. So, Murray was upset, but not so upset he had jumped in the Saab and driven after her. What had he done? Gone back to bed? Sat up discussing the wife who didn’t understand him? Chased after a furious girlfriend who hadn’t known he had a wife at all?

Exhausted, she sat down at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands. She was beyond tiredness. Beyond coherent thought. The phone rang but she ignored it. She heard the click and whirr of messages recorded and listed. She didn’t register if it was Murray’s voice or not. She didn’t care.

Eventually she climbed stiffly to her feet and walking into the bedroom she threw herself down on the bed. She slept at once. When at last she was awoken by the sound of a key in the door it was already late afternoon.

They made up the quarrel in the end. She tried to make herself believe his excuses, tried to see his meaningless dalliance through his eyes as her fault, tried to believe it wouldn’t happen again. But it was only three weeks later that she saw him with his arm around the woman’s shoulders. They were standing at the traffic lights in Hanover Street and gazing into one another’s eyes as though there was no one else in the whole world but them. No reconciliation could survive that look. There was no point in even trying.

As though acknowledging her change of attitude and recognising at last the depth of her hurt, Murray accepted a relocation to his firm’s New York office. There would not be another unexpected glimpse of his happiness with someone else. That at least he would spare her. Ruth did not ask if the new lady was going too and he did not volunteer the information but it seemed a certainty. The divorce was, if not amicable, at least civilised, and sheepishly, perhaps regretting what he had lost as much as looking forward to what he had gained, Murray gave her his half of what was, after all, her cottage so that it would not have to be sold as the flat would have to be sold. ‘Remember the happy times!’ he whispered with a wry shrug as he gave her his key. ‘Don’t let me have spoiled this for you as well.’

He hadn’t, but it took a long time. It was winter when she went back at last and there was a new man in her life. Their relationship was still delicate, gently explorative, a slow unfolding of possibilities and it had been several weeks before she suggested they go to the loch. On the way she wanted to drop off a can of diesel to say thank you to her midnight rescuer.

She had thought about him often, wondering what he had made of his strange nocturnal visitor; wondering why he had not spoken to her or acknowledged her thanks, and her telling of the story had been a way of letting Edward know about her pain, about the tenderness and vulnerability she felt each time she saw him; explaining her reticence about a relationship which was in so many ways just right.

‘I’m not Murray, Ruth,’ Edward said gently as yet again she withdrew suddenly into some safe centre deep inside herself. ‘I am not going to hurt you.’

She nodded. ‘I know. I want to believe you. I want to believe in love and trust, I really do. It’s just -’ She hesitated miserably. ‘It won’t happen. Not yet.’

And he smiled and kissed her gently, like a brother. ‘Give it time, love,’ he said. ‘That’s all you need. Time. I’ll wait. I’ll be there when you want me.’

She pored over the map, trying to decide where it was she had been on that fateful night. She traced with her finger her flight back along the main road, remembered where the car had flashed through the village and up the long slow hill beyond the brae and then she saw it, the right angle bend where she had in the dark driven straight on, doubling back unintentionally towards the sea. On the map she could see it was an unmade track which led onto the hill and then stopped; she could see the wood and the moors and the tiny black square which was the croft.

Edward was a good driver and she sat back, enjoying the way he handled his car, content to act as navigator, and tolerantly amused by his raised eyebrow when she missed the turning she wanted him to take. Murray would have fumed and criticised and argued impatiently. But then Murray wouldn’t have wanted to bother to return the diesel at all. Edward merely slowed the car and found a place to turn and they approached the corner again. Again they missed it. The track, if it was there at all, was obviously harder to see in daylight than it had been at night. They consulted the map, heads together, hands almost touching, then he engaged gear and once more slowly they edged towards the place. And there it was, scarcely more than a path, overgrown and muddy, heading into the centre of the wood.

‘I don’t see how I could have thought it was the main road!’ Ruth frowned as the car bumped over the ruts.

Edward shrugged. He threw her a quick smile. ‘You were upset and angry.’

‘But not blind drunk!’ She grimaced as his car grounded and the wheels slithered sideways. ‘Look, maybe this isn’t a good idea. I’m not sure it’s right at all.’

But it was right. Around the next bend they came to the place her car had finally stopped. She recognised the skyline, the hill, the two Scots pine. Leaving the car they walked along the track, Edward carrying the new can of diesel. He was laughing. ‘Remind me never to make you angry. The adrenaline which carried you up here thinking it was the main road must have been formidable!’ He put down the can and stretched his arms. ‘It’s worth it, though. The view is amazing.’ From the path they could see across the moor towards the sea and the islands beyond.

Ruth frowned. ‘There wasn’t a fence here before. There can’t have been.’

‘No?’ He glanced at her. ‘But this has been here for ages, Ruth. Look.’ It was rusty, threaded with dead bindweed and bracken, the posts in places rotted half through, hanging drunkenly from the very wire they were supposed to be supporting.

Ruth walked on. There was the rock where she had spotted the mysterious man. And there in the heather the sheep track they had followed. To reach it she had to climb through the wire.

‘I don’t understand it.’ She shook her head. ‘This doesn’t feel right. Everything is where I expect it to be. The track, the rocks, those trees, but there was no fence.’

‘Well, we’ll soon know. If the cottage is there.’ He put down the heavy can again and reached out to take her hand. The wind was cold and there was a scattering of sleet in the icy sunshine, but there was something else as well. ‘You look scared.’

‘I am scared.’ She was shivering. How Murray would have mocked her. ‘And I have just remembered. I was scared last time, too. Really scared. For no reason. Suddenly. It felt odd. Lonely. Threatening.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

‘So am I.’ For a moment their eyes met. He smiled. Picking up the can again he began to walk. ‘Come on. Over this rise and we’ll see if we’ve got the right place.’

The croft was there, but there were no white walls, no shaggy turf roof. A few piles of stones, a ruined gable end, the footings of the byre walls surrounded by nettles was all that remained of the place now.

Ruth stared, open mouthed. ‘I don’t understand.’

Edward glanced at her. He had put the can down again. ‘Where did you find the diesel?’ he asked quietly.

‘There. Round the back of the byre. There was an old tractor – ’

Leaving her standing where she was he pushed his way through the weeds and thistles.

‘Don’t bother, Edward. It’s the wrong place. It has to be,’ she called. Ramming her hands deep into her coat pockets she followed him.

The tractor was still there. What was left of it. A pile of rusting metal. And the remains of the other old can stood by the crumbling wall. She had picked it up and shaken, hadn’t she? A rowan tree was growing through it now.