The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill Page A

did not have the usual markers for the onset of autumn, but the light had changed subtly, and everything seemed to be slowing gradually, like a creature moving towards a long winter. Not that anything ever moved quickly on Taransay. Life was lived at a steady, measured pace, quite different from the one he was used to; people did not hurry and there was little noise other than the sounds of nature. For the first few days here he had slept, taking sleep in great draughts like cool water after a drought, and had soon lost much sense of time and the progress of the weeks. Coming to, he had wondered briefly if he would become bored or restless. He need not have worried. He slipped into the life and the pace and floated on its surface, never for a moment missing anything about his usual life, other than his family. He sometimes woke late, sometimes early, sometimes went to bed before nine, hardly able to remain upright, sometimes went out walking on the shore at three in the morning. He ate and drank when he felt like it. And then, going across to the village pub for supper one evening, he had met Kirsty McLeod.
    It was the most uncomplicated relationship he had had since the early days of Diana – more so because Kirsty had made it clear that she was not likely to fall in love with him and certainly would not want to follow him when he left the island for home. She was a local girl but she had left to study biology at the University of Glasgow, stayed to do teacher training and worked in schools in the city for three years before realising that she was homesick at too deep a level to stay away any longer. She had returned to the island to help the various members of her family run the hotel, pub and shop, and, more recently, had taken a business studies course online. She was no fool, she was even-tempered, cheerful, pretty, without baggage and they had fallen into an easy friendship. But it had been Kirsty who’d stepped the friendship up a level when she’d appeared at the cottage late one night.
    Simon enjoyed having her in his bed, liked her company, found her straightforwardness and slight stubbornness attractive. But that was all. It was all for her, too. The whole thing worked pleasantly and easily, and when he eventually went home, it would end in the same spirit. He had found out, in any case, that a farmer on the other side of the island regarded Kirsty as his own for the future, if not just for the present, and Simon guessed that he was right – when Kirsty was ready to settle she would do so with Douglas and that would be for the best too.
    He opened the cottage door and wandered out onto the strip of thin grass which was all the place boasted as a garden. From here there was an uninterrupted view down to the water. The seals had gone but they would reappear later, sleek dark heads surfacing and diving. There was barely a line between sky and sea and little colour but different washes of grey, soft brown, faded green.
    He had spent hours walking about the island, sitting on outcrops of rock to draw the landscape, the hills, the bobbing heads of the seals, cormorants, gulls, divers. He had brought back sheeps’ heads picked bare and whitened by the wind and salt air, strangely shaped stones and pieces of driftwood, and had drawn those, sitting in the clear light at the table in the window, or, when it was warm enough and not too windy, outside. His drawing books were almost full.
    He had met a few people, enjoyed his trips to the pub, bought what he needed from the shop, and avoided the visitors. Taransay was a paradise for birdwatchers and walkers, but had little else to offer. The cottages dotted about the island, like this one, were rented out for five months of the year – otherwise, the island was too difficult to get to, too bleak and windswept.
    It was the end of September. He had another week, though he could extend the rental for as long as he chose, but he knew he wouldn’t enjoy a winter here even if