She gasped and smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead. ‘Of course he is! How stupid am I? It’s one of my favourite films and I never even registered the name.’

I wrapped my hands round my mug, for comfort as much as anything. ‘Why are you here? I don’t mean that in a rude way. I just don’t understand why you’re asking me about Scott… Adam… when you could have confronted him about it. He’d have more answers than I do because, to be honest, I still don’t fully understand what happened or why.’

Fiona looked down into her tea and shook her head. ‘I can’t confront Adam.’

‘Why not?’

She looked up and straight into my eyes. ‘There’s no easy way to say this. I’m sorry, Jemma, but Adam’s dead.’

39

Sam

‘Tough day?’ Stevie asked that afternoon, joining me in a booth in The Lobster Pot, a pub on the seafront overlooking South Bay’s harbour.

‘Not too bad so far. This thing at the beach hut tonight could tip it the other way, though.’

Rob took a seat next to him. ‘My parents are going. The invitation included me too.’

‘And you haven’t seen her for years?’ Why had they gone so overboard with the invites?

‘We were maybe fourteen or fifteen last time,’ Rob said. ‘We weren’t friends. Not that she wasn’t a lovely girl. It’s just that we didn’t know each other well enough to be mates.’

‘It’s fine. I knew what you meant. Balls. It’s going to be full of people I don’t know who probably barely knew Nikki too but they’ll all be looking at me. I can’t stand all the sympathetic looks and whispers.’

Stevie raised his pint. ‘Then you’re going to need several of these to psyche yourself up.’

That sounded like a brilliant plan.

Some people make out that men don’t talk, or at least they don’t talk about difficult subjects and feelings, but the three of us talked non-stop that afternoon, really setting the world to rights.

We discussed Nikki’s death, the baby, and how running away to London hadn’t been the answer. We talked about how Stevie had dealt with losing his baby and how Maddy had screwed him up so badly that he’d thought he’d never be able to commit to a long-term relationship again.

Rob shared how he’d felt when he realised he was attracted to men as well as women, and how messed up he’d been after he’d split up with his girlfriend in Bristol after she found out that he’d dated men before but hadn’t told her.

And I told them about Jemma.

‘Seriously, mate, you should be with her,’ Stevie slurred, pointing his finger at me and swaying slightly.