Kate hangs up the last of the coats and heads across the room to the pitiful ‘refreshment area’ – a sink, fridge, kettle, two cupboards and little else. She fills the kettle and turns it on then takes a teabag from the metal caddy in the cupboard. She drops it into a tannin-stained mug and crouches to open the fridge. Her hand falls away from the handle as a thought hits her. Across the room is a wall of coats. Geraldine’s is in the middle – a horrible green fleece, the material bobbled from over-use. As the kettle bubbles, Kate slips her hand into the pocket of Geraldine’s coat. She grimaces as her fingers fold around a used tissue. When she can’t find anything else she moves her hand into the other pocket, feeling sure she won’t find anything. If Geraldine was clever enough not to pack anything that gave away her real identity there’s not going to be anything in her coat.

Or is there?

Kate’s forefinger grazes something solid and thin. The edge of a train ticket maybe? She plucks it out, fully expecting to be disappointed.

She holds it at arm’s length, squinting to make out the text on the small, white card.

‘Gotcha,’ she says.

Chapter 33

Now

FRAN

The queasy feeling in Fran’s stomach is still there, despite a packed lunch in the cramped back room of the Wilderness Adventures lodge, a two hour lie down back at the retreat, two pints of water and several antacids. It began when she reached the summit of the twenty-five foot pole and ventured a glance down. Her stomach roiled and her knees weakened. There was no way she could stand on the tiny, circular ledge at the top, without anything to hold onto. She crouched, straddling it, her feet on the metal climbing pegs, her fingers gripping the edge.

Tom shouted up words of encouragement. ‘Stand up!’ ‘Trust your partner.’ ‘Relinquish control!’

Fran wanted to tell him to stick his control up his arse but she was too terrified to speak. As for trusting her partner – Phoenix was so easily distracted he’d probably let go of the safety rope to do up his shoelace at the exact moment she leapt off the pole.

‘Face your fear and jump!’ Peter called up to her. He was next in line to experience the ‘leap of faith’ and was growing more and more exasperated the longer Fran refused to let go of the pole and step off the small platform.

‘If you can’t do it for you,’ Tom shouted, ‘do it for someone else. Do it for someone you love, to turn back time …’ He paused. ‘… To say sorry.’

Fran glared down at him. How bloody unprofessional. Their conversation in the therapy room was supposed to be confidential and there he was, telling everyone that she had regrets.

‘I’ll do it!’ she shouted back. ‘If you all just shut up.’