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Meg felt less enamored of his obvious advances. She remained rigid in his arms, as if the scent of him, and not just the booze he’d consumed, was now distasteful to her. He smelled like earth, she thought—like the stuff she’d scraped from the side of the cottage and had yet to tell him about.
    As he slid up her nightgown, she asked, “Are you still glad we moved out here, Harry?”
    “It’s only been a few months.”
    “Do you mean you might one day change your mind?”
    “I doubt it. But who can say? At the moment I feel fine about it. The traveling’s hard, but it’s not as if I’m not used to that, is it?”
    “No,” she replied, looking at him, seeking signs of untrustworthiness in his unblinking expression. “It isn’t.”
    He was a competent liar; his line of business had taught him the necessity of that. But why should she think he was being dishonest now? He worked away, spent long hours at the office, earned enough to support the pair of them. She had a comfortable life and appealing prospects. Wouldn’t millions of other women exchange their relatively disadvantaged positions for all Meg had: free time, a home on the coast, plenty of stimulating interests? Of course they would, and to think otherwise was selfish…Nevertheless, a distinct part of her remained aloof from what followed.
    Something definitely stirred outside the property, wriggling cautiously toward it. Their bedroom gave on to the rear of the building, and there was no security light situated there. The moist, hissing sound that accompanied the arrival might be rain falling at a distance…or might be something else entirely.
    And while Harry continued pumping in an act Meg could no longer associate with anything other than baby-making, the cottage gave a sequence of flat, wet sounds, which might be objects pressed firmly against its clean exterior.

 
     
     
    5
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    A few days later, when Harry was back in West Yorkshire, Meg decided to visit the local library, at the heart of nearby Whitby.
    There’d been no further disturbances around her home, which had led her to assume that all the strange thoughts burdening her this week had been just a consequence of her psychology, adjusting to the house move and her husband’s more frequent absence.
    She’d decided to take an interest in her new environment by seeing what she could learn about it. She’d start by exploring her native Sandsend, before moving on to other parts of the region, which she knew had lots of fascinating history associated with them.
    The bus dropped her off near a bridge over a river, where countless tourists loitered, many eating fish-and-chips. Above the town, on a cliff overlooking the North Sea, stood the famous abbey, and nearer by were countless independent businesses, uncorrupted by high-street-store dominance. This appealed greatly to Meg, despite having once worked for an advertising company, many of whose clients had been the corporations she now decried.
    If this was a hypocritical standpoint—she’d been paid a high salary over the years—she shouldn’t feel guilty; she’d at least known when to put an end to it all. Her hostility to the industry went deeper, however, and involved a suspicion about what overwork and stress had done to her body. She’d quit paid employment only months after becoming pregnant, but could residual exhaustion and anxiety continue to have a corrosive effect? She didn’t know, and wasn’t sure she wished to. Indeed, after entering the library in a quieter part of town, she pushed aside the thoughts and tried to remain positive about her newfound research interests.
    The main part of the building was on the first floor, up a single flight of steps. Then she found herself in a large room bearing copious shelving filled with books. Smiling casually at a librarian standing at a check-out desk, she strolled to her right, following signs for key categories, such as biography, politics, science,