Kate takes two short, sharp puffs on her inhaler then she flies around the bedroom in a fury, snatching up her make-up bag, hairbrush, toiletries and clothes. She hurls them into her suitcase, zips it up and slams out of the room.

‘Kate?’ Renata steps out of her bedroom, blocking her escape route down the stairs. ‘Kate, what’s wrong?’

‘Tom is.’ She moves to push her way past then changes her mind. It’s about time her husband’s adoring minions knew the truth. ‘I wouldn’t advise you to spend any more time alone with him.’

Renata gives her a bewildered look. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

‘Good. That’s one less person he’s fucked.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘My husband’s in love with Jenna.’ She laughs at the disbelief in Renata’s eyes. ‘Yes, I know. She’s dead, and yet he’s still divorcing me.’

‘But … but …’

Kate pushes past her. ‘Don’t bother booking another retreat. It’s over. I’m done.’

Chapter 42

Then

JENNA

In a patch of wasteland at the back of the hotel, over a low stone wall, fifty metres from the rough track that leads to the cliffs, is a large circle of pale rocks. Some are limestone, dug out of a local quarry and shaped into bricks, others are rubble, placed loosely on top. It looks to Jenna like the remains of a large animal pen but now it’s become the perimeter of the sweat lodge, a curved, tarpaulin roof like a turtle’s back rising above the grey stones. Her hair whips around her face as she walks past it, to the small marquee that’s been set up to give them shelter from the wind before the ceremony takes place, and to prepare.

Erica, trudging behind her, looks impossibly young without her make-up. Erica is impossibly young. Jenna isn’t wearing make-up either; none of the women are. No jewellery either. They have all showered and shaved and, under their white dressing gowns, they’re in bikinis and swimsuits. In ancient cultures, Tom told them that morning, participants in a sweat lodge ceremony would be naked; partly to allow the whole body to be cleansed, along with the mind, but also to complete the symbolism of the rebirthing at the end. They would squirm and stumble, naked, through the flaps of the tent, leaving behind the warm womb and entering the world cleansed and renewed. Damian laughed so hard at the word ‘flaps’ that he had to leave the room.