Unfortunately, Robert, as I knew only too well, was an entrepreneur whose business strategy was built on crazy ideas. Anything that required a punt he was prepared to consider – and when I say anything, I’m not exaggerating. Robert laughed it off. Bravado had always been his calling card and, to begin with, I loved him for it. His conviction always enthused others but he had no patience for follow-through. Sooner or later money for every one of his projects drained away and he was left grasping at ever thinner straws. Each new idea was the angioplasty balloon that would unblock the clogged arteries of our debt and make the heart of our ailing finances beat healthily once more. Temerosa had been no different. For a while after we got back from that first trip, Robert was Bugsy Siegel and Temerosa his Las Vegas. Then the ghost town became just another piece of paper lodged with the lawyers. A ghost project, buried and forgotten, its potential scattered to the four winds of the Sonora. Six months ago Robert couldn’t believe my resurrection of the Temerosa plan, and now here he was, thoroughly overexcited about the idea of a swap.

‘Alice, what if this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for? Hogan thinks that if we’re ambitious enough for the project, it could attract some serious investment.’

‘Robert, trust me. You do not want to be in business with Hogan.’

‘Just hear him out, Alice. What harm can it do? Look . . .’ He tailed off and I knew then what was coming. ‘Maybe I should find a way to get over there.’

He’d said it before, but he didn’t really want to come any more than I wanted him to. Our unspoken separation suited both of us and we knew it.

The silence down the line thickened.

‘Alice, I want to see you.’

‘Robert . . .’

‘I miss you, I miss the children.’

Guilt washed over me. ‘They miss you too.’

Sooner or later I’d have to let him come. Of course I would, just not yet. Please, dear God, not yet.

The investors join their wives. Hogan chalks up some small talk while I sink ever further into the sofa, squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember what the sun feels like on my face.

‘Open your eyes.’ Duval had closed my hand round something smooth and cold.

‘What is it?’

‘A fossilized leaf. I found it by the schoolroom.’

I traced my finger along the thin indented spine. ‘So fragile.’

‘Except – think of the unimaginable pressure it’s had to withstand. It’s been burnt by lava, flooded, crushed and yet it’s still survived. It’s an incredibly romantic idea . . .’