Received Monday evening, two days ago. The subject line was blank.

BD: Ben Delaney.

I clicked on it, a painful lump in my throat.

I need you. Don’t let him do this. You know we are meant to be together. Please let’s just talk one more time. Need to see an old mate at home on Thurs but then back. 10 a.m. Sat, usual place? Begging you, beautiful girl.

Will dream of you tonight, like every night.

B xxx

I read it once, then again, then a third time, feeling a vein pounding in my forehead.

On the pad beside me I wrote: Meeting: 10 o’clock Saturday. B+M. And underlined twice: Where? At 10 a.m. on Saturdays I was at the swimming pool with William for his regular weekend lesson – we would be out of the house between 9.30 and 11 a.m. Maybe he was coming right here to our house, then. Maybe I’ll arrange a play date for William and make a surprise appearance at home.

There was no maybe about it. I would be there, it was just a case of finding out where.

In my heart, I still loved her. There was no doubt. But where it had always brought me joy in my past life, now the love brought sadness with it.

Can we find our way back to where we were before?

Yes. There has to be a way.

I checked the sent items again, but there was no response to this plea from Ben. Either she had deleted her reply, or she had not replied at all and simply deleted his email.

She didn’t reply, because it’s finished between them. It has to be the latter. Has to be.

I forwarded the email to my Hotmail account – copying in Peter Larssen with the short message ‘From Ben – can we discuss?’ – then deleted it from her sent items so she wouldn’t know what I’d done.

The message was interesting for another reason.

Need to see an old mate at home on Thurs.

Home. It was the only mention that I could find of Ben saying he was going somewhere, a definite indication of where he might be found. But where was home for Ben? His home in Hampstead, where his wife was slowly falling to pieces in his absence?

Or home as in where he came from, where he was born?

Chapter 51

51

At 10 a.m. I called Larssen to fill him in on our close encounter at the mall and the text exchanges between Mel and Ben. He listened, asked a few questions, and said he would inquire about CCTV footage.

‘The email you just forwarded to me,’ he said. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘In Mel’s Gmail account.’

‘With her knowledge and permission?’

I paused.

‘No. She doesn’t know.’

‘Hmm. Any indication that she replied to this message?’

‘Not that I could find.’