‘I know he’ll be different. But I’m scared about how much. I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept dreaming that he wouldn’t even know who I was. I keep wondering what’ll be left of the old version of him, if there’ll be anything at all. I’m scared there might not be.’

I didn’t say my fear was the opposite: that he wouldn’t have changed at all.

It occurred to me that Lucy had never asked me about the money. She mustn’t have known about it. That’s a huge amount to keep hidden in a marriage, I thought.

She surprised me again by putting out a hand. I took it: a truce. Her hand was shaking so much I’d have had to grab her by the elbow to keep it still. ‘You shouldn’t have done that to him,’ she muttered, before letting go. So low and quiet I almost missed it. I opened my mouth to argue, but she raised a hand. ‘I’m not saying it’s your fault. I’m not that narrow-minded. But none of this would have happened if you hadn’t made that choice. He might have ended up in jail, but it would have happened a different way. I hate you for that.’ She wasn’t angry; rather, she was calm and sincere, so I knew it was true. ‘I just wanted to say it aloud to your face. Just once.’

I nodded. I’d had a feeling she wanted to say this to me – Just Once, like she liked having Just One More cigarette, but I understood. I’d been thinking a lot about the same thing the last twenty-four hours. I didn’t blame her.

A rumble echoed across the rooftop, the growl of a car’s engine really grappling with the terrain, picked up in the wind and ferried to us. I looked to the entry road and saw a pair of headlights emerge from the trees. It wasn’t a car though: it was a mid-sized box-truck. One you’d hire to move house. It was comically impractical for the conditions and started bouncing down the slope. Five, maybe ten, minutes away.

‘Here we go,’ I said.

Lucy took a deep steadying breath and fumbled out what would be her last cigarette.

CHAPTER 12

The gaggle that formed in the parking lot, uphill from the guesthouse entrance, was not unlike the one that had formed earlier on the mountain: it was the same wary semicircle, except that instead of clamouring for a glimpse at a dead man, we were all there to see one resurrected.