Madame Burova sat staring out of the window at the heaving waves of a sea buffeted by a bullying wind. She had been coming to the café for most of her life and she felt comfortable here, which is why she had chosen it as their meeting place. If the meeting took place at all. It was twenty minutes to two and she had asked Billie to join her at two o’clock, but she had no idea if she would turn up. On the table in front of her lay the brown envelopes and a tiny silver bracelet inscribed with the name ‘Billie’. It had been over forty-five years since she had seen Billie – since she had cradled her in her arms. But she had never forgotten the unbearable softness of her baby skin and the brush of her downy hair against her lips as Madame Burova had kissed her head for the last time before handing her over to the strangers who would reinvent her life. Of course, she had the photographs that Billie’s adoptive father had sent every year until Billie was eighteen and then the final picture of her in a graduation cap and gown. It had been very kind of him. He was under no obligation to honour her request, but the pictures had arrived, nonetheless. Madame Burova wondered if she would recognise the woman that Billie had become. If she came.

At twenty past two, Madame Burova stood up to put on her coat, but just as she was lifting it from the back of her chair, the bell above the door rang and a woman wearing a bowler hat and brandishing a bunch of flowers burst into the café. Her comic entrance was reminiscent of a scene from a Charlie Chaplin film. Madame Burova sat down. She really hoped this was Billie. The woman was obviously looking for someone. She surveyed the tables and then stood, uncertain, in the centre of the café, as though waiting for a sign. When none was forthcoming, she made her way to the counter and asked for a cup of tea and a slice of carrot cake. Having placed her order, she came straight over to Madame Burova’s table.

‘Are you Madame Burova?’

Madame Burova looked into her face, searching for some familiar feature. But she saw nothing that she recognised and was both disappointed and relieved.

‘How did you guess?’

‘You’re the only person in here who looks like a Madame Burova.’

Madame Burova smiled. ‘Please, have a seat.’

Billie sat down and shrugged off her coat. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. I’m hopeless at directions. I went the wrong way down the seafront.’

‘I was about to leave. I wasn’t sure that you would come.’

‘Neither was I. But in the end, I couldn’t resist.’