She stopped. This was too far. Something about being able to say this to a face from the past that had made her relax more than she ought to have done. That face; Xanthe’s, familiar, but older, motherly, calm and absent of the thousand quick frustrations Sam realized she’d expected to find there. It occurred to her she didn’t know that she could trust it. In fact, given what she’d already found out about her old comrades, why would the one who was hiding out in Greece, the one who’d refused to testify or get involved, but had replied immediately when a post-settlement Sam had asked her if she could come and stay at her retreat, not be in on it? What if Xanthe had bought this place with a payout from the police? What if this was an extended experiment on her, to see how she was reacting psychologically? What if they were watching her in that little sunny room in the house? Sam thought all of these things at lightning speed, registered each one in the time it took Xanthe to open her mouth for a reply, and stood up, dusted the sand from her legs, gestured towards the sea.

‘I can go in that, yeah? I mean, there ain’t sharks or nothing?’

‘No sharks. Not this close to the shore. But take it easy, eh? You’ve had a big glass of wine on a hot day. Don’t go too far out. Make sure your feet can touch the bottom.’

Sam grunted, as though Xanthe were a nagging schoolteacher issuing orders, discarded her wrap and strode out into the water in the pregnancy swimming costume she still fitted, almost three years on. It wasn’t cold. She’d been expecting cold. The ocean floor was pebbled, uneven; she must look to Xanthe on the shore like a foal trying to walk, a complete novice. Little city girl in the big sea. She stopped for a second, swore out loud at its uninterrupted hugeness, its cunty beauty, the cheek of it, pressed on shakily. Once she got to waist-height she squatted down, let it all pool about her, not cold but still a shock on the overheated skin of her back. She tried swimming strokes, just with her arms at first, then pushed off with her feet, knees bumping along the rocks below. It was nothing like swimming at the Brockwell Lido. She was aware all the time of everything being much bigger and wilder than herself, the floor untiled, the force of waves and currents. There was nothing and nothing in front of her, and it was blue. The waves blew up, slapped her face, salt water up her nose making her cough and lose her footing. There was nothing underneath and she panicked, choked, wondered if she would sink. It would matter. It would matter if she did.