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Amy parked by The White House, where the sheep dawdled in the road like truculent teenagers, and took the path up Blackstone Edge. The Pennine Window, that’s what the experts called this whole area. From Blackburn across to Ilkley in the north, and down as far as Sheffield in the south. The most active UFO window in the country, where one fifth of all reported UK sightings had taken place, dating back as far as the 16th Century. Or in Amy’s case, as far back as 1977… which was a lifetime ago, and nothing went back farther than a lifetime.

She repeated the acid of a red onion chutney she’d spread on her sandwiches that afternoon. Not a problem. She unwrapped a couple of Bisodol from her backpack and chewed their familiar chalkiness, puckering so as not to leave a grainy residue on her lips.

“It’s like kissing a blackboard,” Yann had told her; back when kissing had been much more of an issue between them.

Above her loomed the Blackstone rocks, where climbers kicked in their crampons on a weekend, and from where, on a clear day, they said you could see as far as the Welsh mountains - if your eyes were up to it. Tonight Amy could see the twinkling of Littleborough below her, Rochdale to the west and Oldham to the south. Beyond that, the tremendous burn of Manchester, radiating from the horizon.

She worked her way round back of the rocks ‘til she came out on top, then laid her blanket a cautious distance from the edge. It was a deep midsummer twilight, and the stars had just begun to spark, though it was after ten and the heat of the day had long since rolled off the moors. Amy pulled up her knees and huddled the blanket round her shoulders, waiting.

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