‘I should have come to you before I left. I’m sorry. I thought you’d betrayed me. I wasn’t thinking straight, Nancy. I haven’t been thinking straight for months. I didn’t know who I was. Whether I was Raymond de Guise or Ray Cohen. Whether any of it mattered at all. But what I hadn’t seen, what I should have seen weeks ago is . . . even when my head’s been in a chaos, even when my worlds have been colliding, there’s one thing I have seen straight on. And that’s you . . .’

Nancy was silent.

‘I know it wasn’t you, Nancy. Somebody betrayed me to Maynard Charles, told him who I really am. It wasn’t until tonight that I realised – Billy Brogan was in his pocket. Brogan brought me a letter from home, so Brogan knew too. It must have been Billy. And do you know what? I can’t blame him. The boy has a family, doesn’t he? We all have families to support – and it’s a dark world out there. It’s growing darker by the day. Nancy,’ he whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

He leaned forward, as if to kiss her, but Nancy withdrew. ‘You don’t win me over as easily as that, Raymond. I’m not the desperate little country girl people seem to think I am. And I have other things on my mind than what’s happening to us.’

Nancy stared at him for a moment then strode to her dresser, opened one of the drawers and produced from it a little lavender drawstring purse. She’d cleaned it up since she’d found it on the floor of Vivienne Edgerton’s suite, but the two glass phials still rattled within. She upended it and spilled them into Raymond’s open palm.

‘I’ve seen addiction before, Raymond. You know I have. The ruin it made of my father’s mind was so much worse than the disease that was ruining his body. And that’s what it’s doing to Vivienne Edgerton. I found her, Raymond. Sprawled on her suite floor, lying in her own filth. She might have perished, right there, with no one to hold her – and all because of this . . .’

Raymond was reeling. Of all the things he’d expected coming here, this was the most surprising. ‘Vivienne’s a wreck of a girl,’ he said, ‘but she does it to herself—’