Her eyes gleamed, looking straight into his now, effervescent with happiness.

Luca swallowed, recognition dawning. He’d seen just that look on another face, on another continent. A face of someone he’d loved very much. He hoped Pax could hold on to her freedom. ‘It must feel amazing.’

‘It’s like coming up to the surface after nearly drowning at the bottom of the ocean.’ Her deep voice was still breathless. ‘And I know my head will go back under the water many times, and that I have to swim against the current, really swim hard, and that I might drown again if I’m not careful, especially if I open a vodka bottle,’ she gave him an apologetic look, ‘but I’ve taken my first big gulp of air. Beautiful, sweet, fresh air. That’s what it feels like.’ She smiled, and it wasn’t a teeth-bearing grimace. It lit up her face like a full moon, pale and pearl bright.

He nodded and smiled back. ‘That good?’

Their faces were too close. Their hands were almost touching. The smiles dropped away and he realised, too late, that he could picture himself as the stranger she’d kissed in the bar, the cheap quick thrill of it burning blood to his groin.

‘I promise, Mack’s totally incapable of killing anybody.’ She looked down at their fingers, nail tips dark with molasses. ‘Unless you count boring them to death about golf. If he caught us soixante-neuf on that sofa right now, he’d probably just tell you about the sixty-nine he once scored round Royal Dornoch.’

Luca laughed, but wished she hadn’t planted the image. ‘I’ll watch my back.’

‘Two death threats in one day, Luca.’ She looked up brightly. ‘That’s just selfish.’

‘Comes with being louche.’

He wondered for a moment if she was about to add a third. Fuck this job up and I’ll kill you. She was so hard to read, the black humour counterpoint to the childlike realisation that she was free. Again, he was aware that, by circumstance, he’d witnessed something nobody else in her life would.

‘I’d better introduce you to Alice,’ she said, not moving.

‘That would be grand.’ He didn’t move either.

She looked down at their hands again, head tilting, studying his rings: scuffed Claddagh, signet, eternity. ‘We can show you where the flat is.’

He could feel the soft weight of her extraordinary hair brush against his cheek. It still smelled of last night’s hotel shampoo. ‘Thanks.’

‘I still don’t like you very much if it helps,’ she said, turning briskly away, snatching up the crumpled kitchen roll to put in the bin.

It did.

PART THREE

10

The Bags were trotting at speed in their ongoing quest to burn off post-Christmas bulges, swerving around a clutch of oncoming runners with heads down and earphones in.

‘Morning!’ the riders greeted brightly.

The quartet weren’t the only ones pounding along the local tracks and lanes on a January detox campaign. Almost a week into the new year, the Cotswold fitness tribe had regrouped – creased jogging bottoms, cycling shorts, leotards and trainers had been pulled out of the backs of wardrobes; iPod playlists filled heads with motivational beats; the recycling bins showed a noticeable drop in wine bottles.