Victoria explained how Milton had called her, needing help. She left some parts of the story out, such as the request for a medic and the reason one was needed, preferring instead to concentrate on the fact that Milton was helping the woman.

“Who is she?”

“John said he met her on the plane.”

“And he doesn’t know her?”

“Not before that.”

“So why is he helping her?”

“Apparently that’s what he does now. He helps people.”

“And that’s a change for him?”

Victoria nodded and bit into one of the pies. She knew that Milton hadn’t always been that way. She knew that for a fact, and that—indirectly, at least—the work she had done while she was employed by the Firm had enabled him and the other headhunters of Group Fifteen to do what they did. She had never told Jean-Michel about her work, explaining instead that she had worked as a civil servant in London before quitting and coming to the island. Complete honesty was not necessary in this case. It would lead to difficult questions, and, although she did not like being economical with the truth with her husband, there were some subjects—ancient history now—that would lead to difficult conversations that they did not need to have.

“He helped me,” she said. “I don’t know if I’d be here, with you, if it weren’t for him.”

Jean-Michel pulled Victoria back into another hug, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight. He had never known Victoria when she was a drunk. They would not have met without the changes that she had been able to make to her life, and Victoria knew that she had Milton to thank for that. He had made an effort with her in the first few days after she had admitted to herself that she had a problem. She had been white-knuckling her recovery back then, and the nervousness that she had felt as she waited outside the church hall for her first meeting had been almost insurmountable. There had been shame, too, a cutting self-disgust with the state that she had allowed her life to get into. Milton had helped her to work on that shame, and had shown her how she could find relief and peace of mind just by sitting at the back of the room, drinking cheap coffee in paper cups and listening. He had chivvied her to get to meetings, one a day for the first thirty days. He had even told Victoria his real name as a gesture of trust. Victoria knew that Milton worked for the Group, and that he was a killer, but there was something in him—something inherently good—that gave her a reason to believe that he might have her best interests at heart.

“You okay?” Jean-Michel said.

“Sorry.”

“You look like you’re a thousand miles away.”

“Just thinking back to how it was before I met him.”