One

He slowed as he approached the cottage. They still hadn't spotted him, or they were doing a good job of bluffing if they had. He heard her voice first, scratchy, raised, Australian: 'But what the fuck, Chris? I mean, what the fuck?'

'There's no need to swear.' Big shrug: throwing imaginary confetti into the air. 'There's no need to fucking swear.'

Their bickering carried on a little longer, then they fell silent and Jane knew they had seen him. They didn't say anything; he sensed a withdrawal. Perhaps they were trying to shrink into the shadows to improve their own chances of not being spotted. He almost looked up, but he felt it would be better if they believed they had made contact first. It was a stupid game – he knew that they knew that any stranger would want to check out the cottage for inhabitants, or food – but he didn't want to scare them away. All of the doubt that had squirmed through him had been misplaced, or misread: he desperately wanted company.

He carried on trudging, head down, as if he was lost in the ruined patterns of the earth. When it seemed he had left it too long and must own up to his charade, the girl saved his face.

'Hey,' she called out. Her voice was no longer the spunky come-on she'd been provoking her man with earlier. It was all breath, almost a whisper. When he turned to face them he knew he would be all right. There was no threat here. He was staring at ghosts. They were watching him, plate-eyed, waiting for a reaction. You couldn't pretend to ignore strangers any more, or at best offer them a lukewarm 'Good morning'. Every person warranted scrutiny.

'I'm Richard,' he said, and his own voice sounded so alien that he almost turned around to see who had spoken.

'Chris,' said the man. 'And this is my girlfriend, Nance.'

'Short for Nancy?'

She nodded. She glanced at Chris, then back to Jane. 'Do you have any food?'

They were five weeks into a six-month tour of Europe. They'd flown Korean Air from Sydney to Madrid, spent a fortune on tickets, but all they had was a couple of packs and a tent. They'd spent the first month exploring Spain but had decided to spend December in the UK before moving on to France, Germany, the Czech Republic. Chris had been keen to climb Europe's spine, up along the Baltic States to Finland, a place he had always wanted to see. Nance had favoured turning south after Prague, heading down to some beaches and some heat, maybe as far as Greece. They meant to hitch where they could, but they had some money for the train and weren't averse to putting in some hours behind a bar to make a little extra.

'Then back to Sydney,' said Chris. 'Get a job. Get married. Have kids. Lock down.'

Nance seemed less enamoured of this idea, although Jane realised she could just be tired. She was pale and glassy-eyed, twitching whenever the wind pressed its face against the windows of the living room. He supposed it was difficult to contribute anything to a conversation, even a sceptical expression, when your mind was filled with What the fuck? She possessed a fragile beauty, the kind that didn't cope well with sleeplessness and stress. She seemed a person for whom the word 'wan' had been invented. Everything about her was pale: her watery grey eyes, her sandy blonde hair, the colourless arc of her mouth. Even her clothes were wanting for colour, as if leeched by her neutrality. That red coat would end up a washed-out pink before long, he thought.

From here, Jane could just make out the shape of his tent in the trees, but you would have to really know what you were looking for. Chris and Nance were sitting almost primly on the edges of wing-back chairs, chewing dates and trading glances as if they were prisoners trying to swap silent messages of encouragement. A layer of pink dust had settled on everything except the bed, which was a knot of duvet and pillows. A novel was spreadeagled on the bedside table next to a shrivelled banana skin.

'We were wondering about the air,' Chris said. 'If it was safe to breathe.' He wore an expectant look; he seemed to be seeking approval all the time, as if he needed to break out in a huge smile but could not because of some unspoken code of conduct. He was heavy-jawed, the beard only serving to emphasise the spade-like aspect of his head. His eyes were a dark, almost dirty green, and they did not stay still.

'I was using a mask for a while, but unless you've got a proper filtration unit strapped to your back it doesn't matter. What's out here is in us now. If it kills us, well, it just means we were a little late getting to the party.'

Chris nodded, looked at Nance as if for confirmation. She wasn't offering any.

'What did you see?' Jane asked.

Nance put down her food and stood up. She brushed the crumbs from her jeans and walked past Jane to the bedroom. She closed the door.

'She can't ... she's not ready to . . . process what happened,' Chris said.

'Are you?'

'How about you first? What's your story?'