I remember a cross that I bought from a charity stall for Remembrance Day. I never used it, because I found it too painful to attend the services in Bath – I was haunted by my happy times in St Ives with Milly and Peggy and James. I run back into the flat and grab the cross from the wicker basket that is filled with the things I have no other place for. I imagine Zac frowning, that seeming concern of his.

Are you sure this is the right thing to do, Holly? Are you sure it isn’t disrespectful? I know how prone you are to feeling guilty. You’ll upset yourself. You’ll agonise about it. You know how fragile you are. That cross was made to remember the soldiers who sacrificed for us. You’re really going to put it on the grave of a bird? Not the kind of thing I lose sleep over, but for you it’s sacrilege. What about your father?

I picture Zac dissolving in a puff of smoke like a cartoon baddy. I push the cross into the ground that I have tilled, above the robin that he brought me. I have another thought, and run inside again to where I display a precious little vase that Milly made for me. I take out the bunch of forget-me-nots I’d put in it, and lay these on the tiny grave, too.

Then
Startling Intelligence

Two years and one month earlier

Cornwall, Early March 2017

Zac’s professed kindness to Omar presented me with a perfect opportunity. After what he’d told me the previous night in his study, I was confident that he wasn’t going to pop out at me – he had to be at the hospital covering Omar’s shift.

So I headed for the local library, feeling grateful for once that I’d given in to Zac’s demand that I reduce my working hours to three afternoons a week, which he still thought was too much. The library was my favourite place for Internet searches that I didn’t want to make on my home laptop or phone. I always chose the desk where the screen was facing the wall and I was facing the room, so nobody could sneak up on me from behind to see what I was doing.

Finding the Blackwater Hotel and Spa where Zac and Jane stayed in Ireland was easy. It was what I expected – super-expensive, with beauty treatments and massages on tap, a gym and swimming pool in the basement, a golf course in the grounds, and the most highly rated restaurant in the region.