As she drifted off to sleep that night, Liv found herself smiling. She’d put the locket on; double-checking the chain was securely fastened. Even now, as she wrapped her fingers around the cold silver, she could remember all too clearly how bereft she’d been all those years ago when she thought she’d lost it forever. Now she had it back, she couldn’t dampen this feeling that somehow, her past and present were once more in alignment. Tomorrow she would ring Pete. She would tell him about finding the locket and he would help her to get the flat sorted out. Tomorrow, she would ring Pete and they would start again.

The optimism that had surrounded Liv as she’d fallen asleep the previous night seemed to have evaporated when she woke the following morning. Her alarm not going off wasn’t the best start she could hope for to the day. And then, a missed bus, the wrong shoes and the avenue coated with a thick veneer of ice had all culminated in her landing on her bottom as she’d tried to race to work so she wasn’t too late for her shift.

*

By five o’clock the following morning, Liv knew, it was time to give up the pretence of trying to sleep. She’d lain awake for hours, going over the previous night at Pete’s apartment. Anya standing there, as if she somehow belonged more in Pete’s world than Liv did. Which, as the sleepless hours wore on, Liv knew with growing certainty was quite ridiculous.

Anya would not make Pete happy. In fact, Anya would do quite the opposite. But then, maybe she and Pete were not as ill-suited to each other as Eddie had been to Liv. Perhaps they found the same things funny or just enjoyed each other’s company? Maybe. But there was no way that they could ever have the same deep connection that Pete had shared with Rachel.

This was the lightning realisation that had shot Liv’s eyes wide open in the all too early hours of the morning. How on earth had she not seen this before? How could Pete not have seen it? She tossed and turned for as long as she could force herself to stay in bed, one overriding, unacknowledged truth passing through her. Rachel knew.

Rachel had always known. Hadn’t she as good as said it before she passed away?

Finding Rachel’s locket that morning was like a bolt from beyond. It had literally floored her. She had been reaching beneath the bed, as far as she could stretch, to pull out the matching high-heeled shoes Maya had given her the previous summer when the tip of her finger ran against the slim metal of the chain.