Kitty peered around the side of the car before she answered. It was getting dark now; the sun had gone for the night and a silver crescent moon had appeared in the grey sky. The lights were on in several of the rooms on both floors. Behind the drawn curtains, she could see the shapes of people moving about. But she didn’t care about any of them. All she cared about was the person she’d seen in the upstairs window.

‘We’re going in.’

She stood up and ran towards house, her feet crunching loudly on the gravelled driveway. The sound echoed in the still night before fading into the darkness, until it was like Kitty had never been there.

Eighteen

‘She’s not Kitty.’

‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’

‘Yes, I am. I’m so sorry. I know how much you wanted it to be her.’

‘It’s okay.’ Emer looked down at the table, at the plate of ravioli she had barely touched.

‘It’s my fault,’ Dee said.

‘How do you make that out?’

‘I shouldn’t have let things get as far as they did. I got carried away with wanting to help you.’

Emer picked up a tiny morsel of pasta with her fork and put it into her mouth.

‘Who is she then?’ she said, when she’d finished chewing.

‘Her name is Annie Holden,’ Dee said. ‘She’s an artist. From Sussex initially, but she lives in London now. She used to work part-time at the Town of Ramsgate pub, but she’s given that up recently to focus on her art.’

They were sitting in an upmarket Italian restaurant near Canary Wharf. Emer had been waiting for Dee at the DLR station when she’d got off the train, and they’d come straight here.

‘I asked my colleagues to recommend somewhere,’ Emer had said. ‘A few of them said this place is really good.’

And really expensive, Dee had thought, eyeing the menu when they arrived. She’d ordered a plate of osso bucco that she’d almost finished. The veal was tender and delicious and, she’d reluctantly acknowledged, just about worth the outlandish price tag that came with it.

‘And there’s no way she could be Kitty?’ Emer asked.

‘I met her mother,’ Dee said. ‘She’s a lovely, ordinary woman who clearly adores her daughter. Talking to her made me realise.’

‘Realise what?’

‘We both wanted to believe Kitty was still alive,’ Dee said. ‘You, because it meant your sister hadn’t died. Me, because finding Kitty would have been such a lovely thing to be able to do for you. But we were kidding ourselves. Death is the hardest thing in the world to accept. I’ve lost people close to me and there have been times I’d do anything at all to bring them back to life. But that’s not something any of us can do.’