He felt a tug at his sleeve and glanced over, assuming it was Hamish wanting reassurance about how brilliant the statue was.

Instead, it was a blond woman with a pointed chin whom he didn’t recognize.

“Uh, hi,” he said, cross at being distracted.

“Hi there!” said the girl, exposing very white teeth. “I’ve heard this is your doing? Wow. Amazing. Candace Blunt. Daily Post .”

AS THE CHILDREN yelled and capered in front of the angel and Lorna started to massively downgrade the amount of her lesson plan she was going to get through the next day, she saw him.

Of course she’d known the boys would want to come down. It was absolutely part of the reason she was here in the first place. There was no point in lying to herself. She glanced around. Flora was looking at her in concern, which was ironic, seeing as it used to be Flora in the dodgy relationship and Lorna trying to be sympathetic. Now Flora was up in that beautiful house with a man and a baby, and she was . . .

Well. No point in feeling sorry for herself; it helped nothing. Saif edged toward her. Perfectly normal, just the village doctor having a brief conversation with the headmistress, business as usual—who could possibly suspect? If they were up to anything they certainly wouldn’t be talking out in public like this, would they? No. So.

Nonetheless, she retreated a little into the shadows out of the great light the angel cast.

“Hello, Lorna,” he said in that low gravelly voice she loved so very much.

“Uhm, hi,” she said, as usual as casual as she could make it, which wasn’t very. “Has this got anything to do with you?”

“No,” said Saif. “But it explains all the electric shock burns in the surgery.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh no, I am joking.”

Saif didn’t usually have to explain to Lorna when he was joking. Everyone else, yes.

“It’s . . . I rather like it,” said Lorna.

Saif nodded. “I saw it from the sky.”

She nodded. “How was it?” she asked, in a voice of infinite tenderness.

He stopped short, realizing suddenly he was about to burst into tears if he talked any further. They could not be casual; they could not just chat about this.

Flora came over. She sensed something was up.

“You guys okay?” she said brightly. “I can watch the boys for half an hour if you like.”

“We just . . . need to talk,” said Lorna, glancing at Saif’s stricken face.

“Sure, whatever,” said Flora blithely, pointedly looking away. But Lorna couldn’t worry about that just now. She glanced at Saif, who understood immediately—and could not, anyway, be there for any longer—and he slipped away to the entrance to her flat, just behind the museum. There were no other inhabitants of the building. Nobody saw him, and the flat was, as always, unlocked.

Chapter 46

L orna found him there, sitting in front of the fire, his face buried in his knees, his hands clasping them to his chest. He looked like a statue; he wasn’t rocking, or sobbing, or anything—almost anything would have made Lorna feel less nervous about him than she did.