Fran clicks on the next file and fast forwards through the session. Is Jenna crying? She’s got her head in her hands and Tom is pushing tissues towards her. She looks distressed and Fran wasn’t there. She doesn’t even know what Jenna was upset about. What she’d give to be able to rewind time, to have made one phone call or sent an email. Jenna might never have gone to Gozo. She might still be alive.

Tears burn behind the sheen of Fran’s glasses as she double clicks the third file. How long had Jenna been so unhappy? What caused her so much pain? The final recording begins and Jenna walks into shot. There’s Tom, sitting on the edge of the bed this time. He’s getting up and he’s … he’s hugging her and … they’re kissing. They’re kissing? Fran taps further along the timeline and there’s Tom and Jenna on the bed and they’re naked, twisted together, kissing and—

Fran freezes. There are footsteps in the corridor. There’s a cough, directly outside the door. As the handle turns, she jumps to her feet, slaps at the laptop lid to close it and darts into the en suite. Seconds later, Tom walks into the room.

She can see him, through the 3mm gap where the door is hinged to the door frame, searching through a pile of papers on the bedside table on the left hand side of the bed. He swears under his breath and crosses the room. Fran stares in horror at the laptop. She didn’t slap the laptop lid hard enough: the footage is still playing and Tom and Jenna are naked and screwing on the Gozoian hotel bed.

She holds her breath as Tom steps closer to the dressing table. Please don’t see it, she prays, please don’t— But it’s too late. Tom’s staring at the screen, his mouth open, his eyes wide. Slowly he lowers himself onto the stool and pushes back the laptop lid so the full screen is exposed.

‘No,’ he says softly.

He continues to watch, transfixed, then he jolts back to life, snatches up the laptop and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

As Fran creeps out of the bathroom she can hear him in the corridor shouting, ‘Kate!’ at the top of his voice.

Chapter 41

Now

KATE

Even with the back door shut Kate can hear the commotion in the house: footsteps, slamming doors, and shouts, ‘How do we get rid of the smell?’ ‘Where’s Kate?’ ‘It stinks in here!’ Any minute now one of them will come barrelling through the door, jabbering away, demanding her attention. It was just a bloody toaster fire. You would have thought a nuclear bomb had gone off for all the screaming and waving of hands. Did none of them have any common sense?