‘We didn’t find the diamond bracelet that you mentioned,’ she said.

‘I’ve already got that, remember?’ said Cass. ‘’Cause Adam salvaged it from Mum’s squirrelling.’

She did not now repeat her earlier offer to show it to her sister.

‘I’ll leave them back to Skye in my will, if Jake doesn’t have a daughter,’ said Georgie.

‘Oh God, let’s not think about that now,’ said Cass. ‘Do you want to go through the other box, or shall we leave it for today?’

Georgie felt too flat and defeated for any further division of spoils. ‘Shall we do it tomorrow?’ she said. ‘I feel too tired to do it now.’

‘Let’s go down and have a drink,’ said Cass.

‘Let’s,’ said Georgie.

But the next day Cass did not bring up the subject of the second box and Georgie had not had the heart to prod her.

16.

Melbourne, Australia

Owen hadn’t been looking to meet anyone, not so soon after he’d had his heart almost broken, but there was just something about Hazel. She wasn’t the young woman everyone would have fallen in love with, he could see that. It was sometimes puzzling to him that he had. She was so different from the girl he’d been with before. That first time he met her, he didn’t think he’d seen her smile more than once or twice all day. She was a solemn little thing, compact and watchful. She wasn’t heavy, but there was a suggestion of sturdiness, as if she’d be the sort of person who’d insist on carrying their own luggage.

A bunch of them had been going down to Mount Martha. It was the beginning of October, early in the season for a day on the beach, but it’d been warm all week and the roads wouldn’t be chock full of caravans just yet. They went in two cars, seven of them. Owen’s sister Dawn was doing her teacher training, which is how she’d met Hazel. She’d invited her along, together with a couple of friends from her schooldays.

They’d set up a net for volleyball on the sand and brought the cool-boxes out of the boot of one of the cars. They all stripped off their tops, keeping just their shorts on. Hazel was the only girl who wasn’t wearing a skimpy bikini, and wore a navy blue one-piece. She and Dawn and the other two girls had gone down to the water’s edge in their bare feet. The wet sand there had formed small ridges, like the half-buried ribcage of some vast whale. It felt nice to walk on. After their paddle they’d come back up to join the others.

‘I don’t know about you lot, but I’m starving,’ Owen had said.