The woman in the white coat glanced over her shoulder. It seemed for a moment that she might turn and hurry away down the corridor in front of her and be swallowed up in its glaring, icy radiance. Instead, she smiled, rueful, wry, remembered.

*

They went to a hotel further up the hill, an ugly, white, many-windowed cube surrounded by trees. On the way, they did not speak. Phoebe thought of Lot leading his wife away from the cities of the plain – one backward glance and all would be undone.

Inside, the hotel was large and bright and brashly modern, with a curiously antiseptic air – it might have been another, newer version of the hospital down the road. They sat at the bar on high stools beside a long, low picture window. The place was chillingly spacious, with steel chairs and steel-legged tables. A futuristic chandelier, made of countless splinters of frosted glass, was suspended from the centre of the high ceiling like a frozen avalanche. They were the only customers. Looking down through the window they could see the crowns of the massed trees below, their foliage a deep, blackish green in the strong sunlight, and, further down the slope, the black roof of the hospital.

‘Your papa recognised me, then,’ April Latimer said. ‘I knew he did.’ She gave a small, hard laugh. ‘Of all the seaside towns, in all the world, he had to come here.’

Phoebe had so many things to say, so many questions to ask, that she didn’t know where to begin.

‘He phoned me the night you met him for dinner at the restaurant,’ she said. ‘I didn’t believe him, at first, that it was you.’

‘And then you did?’

‘I don’t know. I so much wanted it to be you that I thought it couldn’t possibly be.’

April looked out over the treetops. She wore a white blouse, the sleeves buttoned at the wrist, a narrow black skirt and black shoes with flat heels. She had changed hardly at all. Her face especially was as Phoebe remembered it, starkly pale and narrow with a sharp chin and large, vibrant, darkly shining eyes. There was something new in her manner, though, a new brittleness. Phoebe had always been a little afraid of her, in a thrilled sort of way. You never knew what April would do next.

A spring door behind the bar opened and the barman came out, drying his hands on a dishcloth. He was young, dark, lithe as a dancer. April and he exchanged a wry, complicit smile. April ordered gin.

Strafford came into view, walking up the hill. At the sight of him, Phoebe felt herself blush. Should she tell April who he was? She said nothing, though, only watched as the detective turned in at the hotel gates. She wished he had not followed her. His presence would only make everything more difficult.