A pause. ‘Nobody’s told me yet. Fingers crossed.’ Then she asked again about Hayley and he told her the facts, being circumspect about making it clear how hard he was finding things just in case Hayley happened to shuffle past the door and hear.

Lily sighed. ‘What a difficult time for you both. I’d better let you get back to her.’ Then she hesitated and added in a quiet, flat voice, ‘Bye, Isaac. Look after yourself as well as Hayley.’

He stared at the dead phone in his hand with absolutely no idea of what to make of the Lily he’d just spoken to. Gone had been every vestige of her usual vivacity and drive. She’d sounded dreary. Deeply unhappy.

Could she be furious with him for abandoning her in favour of Hayley? If so, why had she been his travel agent, minder and cheerleader in getting him on a flight last night when he’d gone into a flat spin?

It didn’t make sense.

He wasn’t going to be fobbed off like that.

He called her back.

But she didn’t pick up.

Chapter Twenty

Maybe Zinnia had been right. Lily should have told Tubb who she was as soon as she’d located him.

But … if she had, he would have never let her work with him and get to know him. Love him like a brother. At least the way she’d done things she had the couple of years they’d worked together, built a relationship. It was something.

Up early, Lily found it incredibly lonely to be alone with Doggo in the annexe, Franciszka presumably staying with Neil. She took her canine companion for a tramp up out of town where traffic had kept the road clear and she could walk at the edge. The morning light cast lilac shadows on the six-inch blanket of blinding white lying over the hills and gullies. Doggo plunged around as if starring in his own snow globe. No snow was falling but the sky was heavy with more and the tops of the surrounding peaks had vanished into the clouds.

She gazed around her, at the beauty that was Switzerland, the place she’d worked so hard to see. The majestic, beautiful peaks, the acres of snow glistening in the morning light. Drearily, she replayed the events of Friday and Saturday evenings. Isaac leaving. Garrick greeting her real identity with horror. Tubb furious and betrayed.

Neither of her brothers had contacted her.

Today had been designed as a relaxation day at the end of the trip but now it yawned ahead of her and all she wanted to do was go home. Problems awaited her there too, with her parents’ relationship struggling and her own relationship with Zinnia to be restored, but despite that she felt a massive pull towards them, to their hugs, their warmth.