She felt the baby kicking inside her womb. Rivelli’s child? A part of him, still living inside her, when everything else had died? It could not be. She would not let it be. If it’s his, she thought, I will use it against him. I will do whatever I can to hurt him, through the part of himself that he has left in me. I will make him sorry that he ever came near me with that goddamned pepper grinder.

And then suddenly she remembered the warmth of the Provençal sun, the taste of aïoli and bourride, the tang of salt water on her skin, the feeling of Massimo moving inside her, and all that had sparkled and shone in her life for so long, everything that gave her pleasure and status and self respect, poured out of her in a torrent of tears and cries and bitter, empty retching.

Her parents, sitting downstairs reading their newspapers, heard their daughter’s agony, looked to the ceiling, sighed, and looked back at their papers.

‘Don’t say anything now,’ said Dan. ‘Ignore me. Go to LA, look after Will, and maybe I’ll see you in Japan. Sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. This is the last thing you need.’

‘No,’ said Isabelle, ‘I’m glad you did. And I’m flattered, I really am.’

‘Oh God,’ said Dan, smiling joylessly. ‘The brush-off.’

‘I don’t know what to say. I can’t think straight. Must be the Bloody Marys.’

‘Yeah,’ said Dan, ‘must be. Fancy another? I think I do.’

‘No, better not.’

The mood had deflated like a burst balloon. They looked at their empty plates.

Isabelle’s phone rang. She jumped up and ran from the restaurant. Dan watched her through the window, pacing up and down on the other side of the thick plate glass. He played with a bit of bacon rind, drawing aimless tracks in the egg yolk on his plate, wondering why he kept on coming back for more from a woman who would surely never care for him in the way that she cared for Will.

She ran back in, her face glowing.

I wish I could make her look like that.

‘It’s Will,’ she said, her voice higher than usual. ‘He’s awake. He’s come round.’ She sat down and buried her face in her hands. ‘He’s going to be okay.’

The police were ready to talk to Will as soon as the doctors were content that he was in no immediate danger of arresting again.

‘Do you remember anything, Mr Francis? Anything at all?’

Will stared at his hands, counting his fingers as if he had never seen them before. His face was still badly bruised. It was hard to tell what, if anything, was going through his mind.