“Where can I get one?!”

“From the booking office . . . if it’s still open.”

Cormac looked back in dismay. The booking office was miles away. They both glanced at the clock. It was four minutes to nine.

“Am I going to make it?” he said.

The woman looked sad. “You can get the eleven fifty to Edinburgh,” she said brightly. “That’ll be fine.”

“If I was going to Edinburgh that would be fine!” said Cormac in anguish. If he didn’t get on that train, that would be it, it would be over. She’d never trust him again.

“It’s nice,” said the woman.

He gave her a level glance. The train started to make noises, the engines huffing up.

He screwed up his eyes. “Is there . . . Someone I really need to see is on this train. Can you call her for me?”

The woman protectively hid her clipboard with her hand. “What if you’re a murderer?”

“Okay,” said Cormac desperately.

Doors were slamming up and down the train now, and a guard was raising a whistle to his lips.

“Can I . . . can I just run up and down the train to see if I can see her?”

“Am I going to let you, a murderer, run up and down the train and peer in everybody’s windows?”

“Pleeeease! This is someone . . . this is someone really important to me. Please. Please.”

The woman looked at him sadly. “I cannae,” said the woman. “Health and Safety. We’ve had a lot of training.”

“Me too,” said Cormac ruefully.

Peeep! blew the whistle.

LISSA STOOD UP and leaned her head against the window of the little cabin, peering out into the world of the sooty, fluorescent station beyond, smelling of fast food and filled with the shouts of cheery or drunken commuters. When had London started to feel so strange?

Funny, it was almost as if it were calling her name. But as she strained her ears to hear, there was another sharp blow on the whistle, and the train began, smoothly, to chug its way out of the great black dirty station.

Chapter 78

“That,” said the woman on the reception desk, covering her ears, “is quite the shout you’ve got there.”

And she lightly stepped onto the platform as Cormac, throat ragged, cried out, “LISSSAAA!!!!” one last time, to no avail. As the train took off, he tried to run alongside it, even as security hailed him, and he stopped, put his hands on his knees, utterly out of breath, utterly defeated.

EMPTY, EXHAUSTED, FEELING foolish, simply ridiculous, for having pinned so many hopes and dreams . . . Lissa sank down on the bed, feeling the soothing motion of the train beneath her. She glanced at her phone . . . no, no, no. Of course.