The Envelope

The rain had followed Emma Fraser all the way home.

It had begun as a fine mist outside the newspaper's offices, barely noticeable at first. By the time she reached her building, it was falling steadily, turning the pavement into a patchwork of blurred streetlights and dark reflections.

Edinburgh in October, she thought. Predictable as ever.

She climbed the narrow staircase to her second-floor flat, balancing her laptop bag against one hip while searching for her keys. A delivery notice protruded from the letterbox beside her door. According to the printed slip, a courier had left something for her that afternoon.

The delivery itself lay on the landing: a cream-coloured envelope, propped against her front door.

Emma almost stepped over it.

There was nothing remarkable about the envelope. No logo, no printed return address. Only her name, written in dark blue ink.

Emma Fraser.

She bent to pick it up. Something about the handwriting made her hesitate.

The letters were small and slightly inclined, with unusually long strokes on the lower-case g and y. The capital F had a distinctive curve, almost as though the writer had changed her mind halfway through forming it.

Emma had seen that handwriting before.

She stood motionless, listening to the distant traffic through the stairwell window. Then she told herself she was being ridiculous. Fifteen years was a long time. Memories could be unreliable, particularly when they concerned something a person had spent years trying to forget.

She unlocked her door and went inside.

Her flat was quiet and cold. She dropped her bag beside the sofa, switched on the kitchen light and placed the envelope on the table.

For several minutes, she made a deliberate effort not to look at it. She filled the kettle, checked her phone and opened the fridge, although she knew perfectly well there was nothing she wanted inside.

Finally, she sat down.

The envelope was made of thick paper. There was no stamp, only the courier's small tracking label on the back. Emma turned it over and ran a finger beneath her name.

She knew that handwriting because she had once studied it for hours, comparing notes, letters and photographs in the hope of understanding what had happened to a missing woman.

A woman called Claire Morrison.

Claire had disappeared from a small Highland village in September 2011. She had been twenty-eight, a literature teacher with an ordinary life and, as far as anyone could establish, no reason to vanish.

The police had searched for her. Her family had appealed for information. Newspapers had published her photograph for weeks. Emma had written several of those articles.

Then, gradually, the story had faded. No body had ever been found. No convincing explanation had emerged.

Emma looked again at the envelope. The handwriting was almost certainly Claire's.

But Claire Morrison had been missing for fifteen years.

And someone had just written Emma's name in her hand.