It was Solveig. Solveig and I only met a couple of years ago when she hired me as her personal trainer for a few months when she was recovering from a knee injury she'd got the week before she moved to Glasgow from Reykjavik. You know when you just click with someone and know you're friend-soulmates from the first minute?

We ended up spending half of the sessions blethering nineteen to the dozen about everything. Relationships, careers, emotions. We got dead psychological, analysing each other's childhoods in depth while I made her do endless leg ups to strengthen her knee. She's the only person I've talked to about my Dad's disappearing act, for example. I don't talk about that ever, not even to Cara. Anyway, after a few weeks I realised I couldn't in all conscience charge her so we just started hanging out. I love Solveig to bits, but when I opened the door to her that morning I shrank away in horror.

I'd seen her just three nights ago, after a flurry of SOS texts delivered the news around our pals that Craig had finished with me. Solveig and Cara marched round to the flat and dragged me to the closest pub where they poured three bottles of rosé more or less right down my gullet. And they partook themselves too. Even in the state I was in, I remember Solveig being tipsy mostly because she's not a huge drinker and just gets dead cute and sleepy. We all ended up in a giggly mess back at the flat where we toasted Craig's demise over and over.

So how did she acquire a great big baby bump in the time since then?

That icy wave of horror that was becoming all too familiar scuttled down my back as I stared at Solveig, my mind working overtime to try to make sense of this.

'Linley!' Solveig stepped forward and grabbed me in a bear hug. I wanted to shrink away, but everything felt spacey and surreal and I couldn't quite persuade my body to move.

'You're okay. Are you okay?'

Solveig held me at arm's length and stared, her piercing blue eyes scanning me intently. I shrugged. I had no idea if I was okay or not.

'Mrs McGroarty said she saw you out her back window throwing away rubbish this morning.'

Good old Mrs McGroarty from upstairs. She's about a hundred and ten years old and sits at her window all day watching folk come and go. Her grandkids got her a smart phone last Christmas and ever since she's added texting incessantly to her repatroire. She texted me last week to inform me she had just seen me walk up the road carrying a Marks and Spencers bag, and had I got something in nice for my dinner or was it a new bra?

'Solveig, what...?' I gestured vaguely at her midsection, and she smiled.

'I'll tell you all about it in a minute, but first, coffee?' She held up a cloth shopping bag with a grin. 'I got some fancy stuff in from that nice shop on Byres Road. They say I'm not supposed to have coffee, but they say a lot of things, don't they? One won't hurt for such a special occasion.'

I nodded, a bit dazed, and stepped aside to let her waddle past me. I shut the door and as I turned to follow her she caught my hand and squeezed it in her wee one.

'I've missed you,' she whispered softly. 'Whatever else there is to say, I want to say that. That is the most important thing.'

'Solveig stop, please, I can't — I can't handle any more of this. What's going on?' I pleaded.

She looked at me, puzzled. 'The baby, you mean? I decided it was time finally to start my family. Me and sperm donor MX4750 will be very happy to welcome our son in three months' time. Well I will, he may or may not find out in eighteen years if the child decides to track him down.'

For a moment everything else evaporated and I was thrilled for her. Solveig had been talking abut this for as long as I'd known her. She said that if she turned 35 with no partner, she'd be right down the sperm bank the next day. She wouldn't turn 35 for another few months but she had obviously decided to get a jump start on things, and she was totally glowing and that was brilliant.

Except.

Except that didn't explain how this all happened in a couple of days.

'When?' I demanded, more forcibly than I'd intended.

'When what?'

'When did you do this?'

'The day after my 35th birthday, just like I said.'

No. No it couldn't be. The blood was rushing in my ears like whitewater. I could hear the echo of my heartbeat resounding around my head, pins and needles shot up and down my fingers.

'Solveig? When did you last see me?'

'It was when Cara and I took you out the night after Craig left.'

'And when was that? How long ago?'

'One year, Linley. You disappeared the next day.'

I heard a scream echo in the corridor and I realised it was me. Solveig took my arm and led me firmly into the living room, sat me on the horrible couch and wrapped my throw around my knees like I was a wee old lady. A moment later she pressed a steaming cup of aromatic coffee into my hands.

'You don't have to tell me where you have been if you don't want to,' she said softly, perching opposite me on the coffee table. 'But just tell me this. Are you okay?'

'I don't know.' I turned away, clutched the coffee for warmth. I was vaguely aware that I was shivering.

The coffee was in a mug Craig bought me for a laugh when we went hiking at Glencoe last summer. It had a picture of a sheep on it, and said 'I love ewe.' Last summer. Two summers ago. I felt sick and tingly, and wanted to fling the stupid mug away, smash it to smithereens on the floor.

'I was attacked,' I blurted. 'I woke up in hospital this morning. Or yesterday morning, I'm not sure any more.'

'Attacked?' She frowned. 'Attacked how?'

'I'm not sure. Mugged, I suppose. Or some drugged-up headcase thinking I was a demon or something.' That had happened to Cara once, when she went to visit her Granny. She'd scared him off by throwing back her head and screaming wildly that she was a demon and she was hungry. He scarpered in terror and she carried on her way.

'I've been trying to remember, but it's all a bit fuzzy.'

'Of course.' She took my hand. 'The main thing is that you're back. Everything else we figure out in time. And at least he didn't injure you.'

The white hot pain. The tight feeling of cuts criss crossing my face. I'd reached up to touch my right temple in hospital, and had shuddered as my fingers felt the outline of a deep cut that had been stitched neatly.

But as I reached up now, I knew. I didn't feel any pain any more, hadn't in hours. I felt along my brow line. There was nothing there but smooth skin.