She longed for him to speak, to contradict her, but he was silent for a while after she spoke and then he said, ‘She knew she was deeply loved, that’s all that really matters,’ and this wasn’t a contradiction at all, didn’t even address the point, but was merely an assertion of something they already knew. Ali took a deep breath and stepped away from him. A dense quiet descended, circling around and between them, a menacing third presence in the room.

‘I’ll call Thea,’ she said suddenly, moving to the phone on the kitchen wall. ‘And we need to tell Stella, and you need to ring Rory and Rob.’

‘Thank you, I know what I need to do.’

‘Sorry, Michael, I suppose I’m just trying to fill this dreadful silence.’

‘I’d be more than grateful if you didn’t,’ Michael said.

She stared at him. He sounded like his mother, killingly and meaninglessly courteous. ‘Michael, do you blame me for this, too?’ she asked.

He looked at her. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Not entirely. But you’re implicated, aren’t you?’

‘And are you implicated too?’

‘Me? I’m innocent, Ali. My conscience is clear, and Beatriz knew that, and probably knows it still, wherever she is now.’

‘She’s dead,’ Ali said, wondering if her husband, the esteemed doctor, was quietly having a nervous breakdown. ‘Her days of having an opinion are over.’

‘Just call Thea,’ he said, and he stood up. ‘I’ll ring my brothers from my office,’ and he left her there, where she held the back of a chair for support, feeling momentarily shipwrecked. But she did ring Thea, who took the news gravely but clinically, like the med student she was; then she rang Stella, who cried and cried in her hostel dorm in Seville, and they stayed together on the line until she’d stopped, until she’d promised Ali that she’d be fine and until she’d further reassured her mother by putting another person on the line – Karin, from Dusseldorf – who said yes, she knew Stella, in fact Stella was her friend, although a very recent one, but certainly she’d spend the rest of the day with her, and she’d call Ali at once if it seemed necessary. Then Ali scooped up her car keys, grabbed her bag and drove to Cass’s flat, where she cried over Beatriz who had died thinking ill of her, and Cass listened to her woes for a long while then said, ‘Enough, enough, I have the antidote to what ails you,’ and together they ate salty crackers with Brie, and watched Terms of Endearment and Steel Magnolias; something they could laugh at as well as cry, Cass said, and anyway she believed there was no sadness in this world that couldn’t be at least fractionally eased by Shirley MacLaine.