‘Yeah, that’s something else we watch for. Look, I’m going to ask you not to say anything about me. To anybody at all, and that includes the police.’ He hesitated, ‘You’re going to ask, so I have to tell you. Burns suspects that some of his fellow cops are dirty, and if they catch even a hint of our operation it will fail and months of work will be wasted. Also your life could be at risk. In this case, ignorance is the safest path. I’m serious, Tilly. Drug runners are ruthless bastards. If there’s a loose end, a thread that could lead to their capture – like, for instance, you knowing that your husband isn’t dead . . . Well, they won’t hesitate to kill.’

Ice seemed to fill Tilly’s veins even as she protested vehemently. ‘I’ve told you Gerry isn’t . . . and anyway, he would never let me be harmed!’

‘He mightn’t have a choice,’ Connor said grimly. ‘There’re billions at stake here and at best he’s a foot soldier, as expendable as any frontline trooper. So will you promise me, Tilly, please? For your sake? Not a word to anyone.’

She rocked forward on the stool as if she were in pain, closing her eyes as the gravity of his words and manner sank in. Once . . . there was a time when she had a child and a man she loved and thought she could trust. When she had a future and believed in happily ever after – and see what had come of it! She wanted to howl her loss for fairytales that weren’t true, for faith smashed on the anvil of reality. Gerry had done this to her, had tossed a grenade of lies and deceit into her life and then vanished, leaving her alone in the wreckage.

‘Tilly?’ A tentative hand touched her shoulder and was withdrawn. ‘Are you okay?’

She straightened, blurred eyes blank and dark with grief. ‘No,’ she said bitterly. ‘I’m not. And yes, I won’t tell.’ And with that admission of belief in his warning, she felt the last vestige of her love for Gerry die. Now she truly was the widow the world believed her to be.

Chapter Seventeen

Over the following week the smaller of the two black cockatoo chicks grew gradually worse, then, just when Luke had pronounced that it couldn’t live, made a remarkable recovery. The sugar glider too, having thrived on its diet, was to Tilly’s secret regret returned to its habitat, disappearing up a tree with a whisk of its extraordinary tail.

‘It’s so cute,’ she lamented to Luke, as she watched it vanish. ‘Another week and it’d be as tame as a kitten.’

‘Which is not what we want,’ he reproved her. ‘They’re wild animals, not pets.’

‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘Only we can’t have pets at Binboona. Not cats or dogs, anyway.’