Eva felt the bite of nails in her shoulder, the stinging scrape of them. Corinne snatched the phone from her grasp. It happened so fast, Eva hardly had time to react. And there was Corinne, backing away from her, one hand held out, warning Eva to keep her distance, but Corinne’s eyes were on the screen, widening as she scrolled through the message.

‘What are you doing?’ Eva asked, her voice high-pitched with alarm.

Eva lunged, but Corinne was quicker.

She turned and flung the phone high into the air. The cry caught in Eva’s throat as she watched the arc of it sailing into the distance, landing somewhere among the long grass in the next field.

A surge of fury and despair rose up through her.

‘You bitch!’ she cried, swinging around to face Corinne. ‘What the fuck did you do that for?’

Corinne’s eyes were hard grey pebbles. Cool and impassive, she returned Eva’s stare.

‘They’re still going to find out,’ Eva said, her voice thick with anger and panic. ‘And when they do, they’ll kill Beth, and then they’ll make sure you never see each other again. This stupid idea will end your pathetic crush on each other, but both of you are too dumb to have thought that through.’

‘They won’t find out unless you tell them.’

‘I will tell them.’

Corinne’s eyes flickered over her face. ‘No, you won’t,’ she said. ‘Or I will tell them about you and that man. The married neighbour. Sending him pictures of yourself. Think how shocked they will be.’ Her voice was soft, playful, but her expression was hard.

Fury turned quickly to shame.

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Wouldn’t I?’

Corinne drew herself up and smiled sweetly at Eva.

‘Watch out for snakes,’ she said softly, already turning away.

20

The restaurant was called l’Orangerie and it was situated in the heart of a village some forty kilometres away. Guy drove, Mark in the passenger seat alongside him, a moody masculine silence between them. In the backseat, Valentina chattered away, making pleasant little asides that breezed past Abi. It was as if she was observing the scene from afar. Four strangers in a car travelling sinuous roads over unfamiliar terrain.

Don’t be ridiculous, she’d told him, that horrible nervous laugh escaping from her throat. As if what he’d said couldn’t possibly be real or serious. Some awful joke of his.

But now, with the evening sunlight in her eyes, the devastating blow of his words revisited her. Abi’s head swam, nausea rising in her stomach. She had no idea how she would get through the meal.