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knew when he was watching and shifted to suit his gaze. He finished, flushed, and went into the spare bedroom, and from there the whole back garden was laid out to his view.
    Still silent, still wrong. It was as though the garden were watching him. He turned to walk from the window and spun around again. Nothing changed, and he smiled nervously.
    Downstairs, he went to the kitchen to switch on the kettle. The small side window opened out over the patio, and Scott stood there as the kettle bubbled and boiled behind him.
    Something moved. He edged back from the window, startled and confused. Nothing had moved out in the garden, of that he was sure, but there had been a definite sense of
shifting
across his vision. He closed his eyes briefly and opened them again, wondering whether he had dust or an eyelash in there. But there was no pain, no discomfort. He turned to open the fridge, his view of the sun striking the window adjusted slightly, and then he saw.
    The dust on the outside of the window was moving. It coalesced into separate islands like scum on a pond, then shifted as though pushed by an unseen current. There was no sound. It stopped moving, leaving erratic new shapes for the sun to reveal, then started again. Smeared, pushed, pulled across theglass, it was still shifting when Scott turned and fled from the kitchen.
    His heart was thumping. What could do that? Sun, wind, moisture in the air, light refracting through deformed glass . . . He stopped in the hallway and leaned against the wall. He was spooked, working himself up into a state of panic. And there was really nothing wrong.
    (
Apart from the broken drawer lock.
)
    Nothing strange outside, and only his own fear inside. Could fear change surroundings? He supposed so. Perception was a strange thing, and he knew it could be altered by moods, tiredness, and dread.
    (
But the lock. I saw the lock.
)
    He heard a car pull up on the gravel driveway and hurried to the front door. Through the vertical blinds at the side window he saw Helen’s Astra shift slightly as she stepped out and closed the door behind her. It was early, but he was so glad that she was home that he did not wonder why.
    Scott went to open the front door, and then saw the look on Helen’s face. She was glancing around, down at the ground and up at the sky, toward the house and into the bushes bordering the driveway. She was frowning. As she remote-locked the car, her other hand waved around her head, as if to knock away a fly or a bee. Scott saw nothing there.
    He opened the door, trying to reign in his relief at her return. “Home early.”
    Helen’s face changed when she saw him. She smiled. It touched her eyes and went some waytoward removing the worry there, but it also left some behind. She was troubled, and Scott did not like that one bit.
    â€œI can’t get that damn letter out of my head,” she said. “And you sounded down on the phone, so I came home early.”
    â€œThanks.” Scott reached out and hugged his wife, kissing her on the cheek. He looked over her shoulder into the front garden. The light fell as it should, the shadows dwelled where they belonged, a few birds skittered around in their Kilmarnock tree. But everything was wrong. If he stepped out there, he could be changed forever.
    He shivered and knew that Helen had felt the movement.
    â€œLet’s go in,” she said. “We’ll cook a nice dinner and open a bottle of wine.”
    â€œSounds good,” Scott said. Helen moved past him into the house, and he did not turn his back on the front garden until the door was shut and bolted from the inside.
    Scott did not mention the broken drawer, but he did let Helen read the letter again. She seemed troubled, but her reaction was similar to before.
    â€œSo what do you see when you read it?” he asked.
    â€œNone of it seems to make sense to me,” she said. “It’s . . . confused. He must have been in a very