Callum's Fault

The appointment had been in the diary since January, and she nearly cancelled it three times between eight and nine.

What stopped her was not a sense of duty. It was the prospect of spending a whole Sunday in the flat with a man who no longer asked her questions, an empty knife block and an A3 sheet rolled in a tube under the table. She took the bus at a quarter to nine, her forehead against the cold glass, and watched a city go past in which people were quietly doing normal things.

King's Buildings was deserted the way science campuses are deserted on a Sunday: a few cars, brick and glass buildings that were too big, corridors lit for nobody. She had spent four days here in January, rescuing the data of an experiment that was being dismantled, and she knew the way.