If there’s anything that I can do to help you, please say. I’ll always be your friend. I hope you can be mine. I hope that I find you again one day soon when your demons are behind you.

One thing, and I know you’re not going to like hearing me say this, but one thing that A has taught me is that life is there to be lived. It’s a gift and we must never waste it. Money can be wasted – should be, even. But time is there to be spent and enjoyed. That’s why I’ve come to a decision about the money: I want you to keep it. Keep it. Buy yourself a place that you can feel safe in, and just heal. Do that one thing for me, if you do nothing else.

Your Mabel

I don’t remember this letter. Not really. It lights a flame somewhere in my mind. I must have read it at the time; after all, I kept it in my favourite book. I scour my head for some remembrance of this. Not long after that day in the café, the next day or the next week, she must have found me, and given me this letter. I must have kept it in the book, until frightened I would lose it, I put it with the other things I gave to Seb to look after.

I did read this letter. But only once or twice. It hurt – I’m sure of that.

And reading it back now makes sure about one other thing.

I have my appointment on Monday with the QC. This letter surely changes everything. Or it could. And all of a sudden, my gloom lifts slightly so that a future that I had settled in my head is given light and is changing into something new.

42

Friday

By the time that I get back to Seb’s, night has set in. I ring the doorbell and he opens it, looking harried.

‘Everything okay?’ he says, ushering me in.

‘Fine. Why?’ I say, following him.

‘You’ve been gone longer than I expected Nina would tolerate you,’ he says, walking into the living room. In the room I am conscious suddenly of my smell. He sits and when he beckons me into the matching cream chair, I hesitate.

‘Maybe I should go and have a bath,’ I say, and stutter in the doorway.

‘It’s okay, sit,’ he says, reading my discomfort. ‘I’ve got the good stuff open.’

There is a bottle of Macallan on a small ebony coffee table. That bottle. The one Dad liked. It’s there on the table, half-full. Two glasses keeping it steady.

‘So, what did she say?’ he says, and pours out two measures. His hand shakes a little as he offers me the glass.

‘What you said. She denied it.’