He jumped when she spoke to him, and scrambled to his feet, closing the book but keeping a finger between the pages to mark his place. His raincoat began to slip to the floor, and they both bent forward to make a grab for it, and almost bumped foreheads.

They walked together towards the departures area.

‘What are you reading?’ Phoebe asked.

He looked at the book he was holding as if he had never seen it before.

‘Tacitus,’ he answered. ‘The Annals.’

‘Is it good?’

‘Good? Yes, I suppose it is. A bit dry. Although there is Tiberius.’ He indicated the page he had marked with his finger. ‘I’m still on him.’

‘Ah,’ Phoebe said. ‘Tiberius. Yes.’

He wore no wedding ring. Might he be, as her friend Isabel Galloway would nudgingly put it, inclined to the leeward side of Cape Perineum? – it had taken Phoebe a moment or two to work that one out. Isabel was an actress, and knew about such things. She hoped he wasn’t one of ‘those’. She had nothing against them, but she didn’t want him to be one.

She thought the flight would never end. There was turbulence over the Bay of Biscay, and she was afraid she would have to use the paper sick bag. All she could think of, as the plane bucked and yawed, was the soft-boiled egg she had eaten for breakfast, and the wrinkled scum of milk on the surface of the cup of coffee she had paid for in the airport bar and hadn’t drunk. Just as they reached the coast of Spain – how far down the earth was! – the plane banked sharply and her innards banked with it. Strafford was engrossed in the horrors of the reign of Tiberius.

The train was better, though noisier. It rattled along at a tremendous rate, curving across parched hillsides and plunging into deep, verdant valleys. She watched from the window hour after hour, enthralled by the familiar foreignness of the landscape. The carriage smelled strongly of garlic and sweat and something that she couldn’t identify. It was simply, she supposed, the smell of Abroad.

*

They arrived at their destination in the early hours of the morning. She was surprised by the softness of the night air. The city was quiet under a dome of stars. She could smell the sea. It didn’t smell like the sea at home.

Quirke was at the station, waiting for them with a taxi. He came forward and kissed her. She caught only the faintest smell of drink. Maybe he was behaving himself. Evelyn had so far been a sobering influence on his life, but that was at home. She hoped he wasn’t using Abroad as an excuse to relapse into his old ways.

He was wearing, of all things, a panama hat. Evelyn must have made him buy it. Phoebe told herself she must not laugh.

‘It’s wonderful!’ she exclaimed.

He shrugged.