There were no more messages on his mobile but he wondered what there would be on the answering machine in the flat. Not that there was anything he could do yet anyway, he thought. It would be two thirty in the morning for Marnie.

He could hear the sound of water running upstairs when the telephone in the kitchen did ring. He picked it up. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Hello?’ But there was a click and the line went dead.

‘Who was that?’ asked Louisa, coming down a few minutes later.

‘I don’t know. I dialled 1471 but it was one of those “we do not have the number” calls.’

‘Oh well, thanks anyway. I’ll ring the hospital to check just in case.’

‘Darling Louisa,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve rung Adam. He’s on his way. I’ll just wait till he comes.’

At that moment the doorbell rang. Louisa ran to answer it and flung herself into Adam’s arms. Christopher quietly slipped away.

He walked to the bus stop at the end of the road with a very heavy heart; wondering what the future had in store for Louisa.

When he got back to his flat he went straight to the answering machine. It showed three missed calls, but no messages had been left. He knew with a deadly inner certainty who the early morning caller had been . . . and why she would have been ringing Louisa’s house first thing in the morning, UK time.

Chapter Thirty-two

The trip to Toronto had been an unqualified success on many different levels. Marnie had thoroughly enjoyed the companionship of her father – she didn’t think she could remember a time when she’d ever before had him all to herself for twenty-four hours, or felt so close to him.

She’d spent the first night with him and her stepmother, Toni, in their New York apartment and enjoyed seeing her three half-brothers, only the youngest of whom was also Toni’s child. She was fond of them all in a semi-detached way, very different from the Piper family’s full-on commitment to each other, and got on reasonably well with all of them – so long as they didn’t have to be together for too long.

‘Dad,’ she’d said suddenly, soon after they’d taken off for Toronto, ‘in all your adventurous life, have you ever had a feeling of certainty that you’ve met your soulmate?’