‘I talked to Monica today,’ Connie said to Devan, as they drove the twenty minutes to Glastonbury. It was a month since she’d collapsed in her hotel room and she was on the mend at last. But the cough persisted and drained her energy, making sleep – even drugged to the hilt with knock-out syrup – intermittent. She was sleeping in the spare room now, because trying to control her cough and not wake Devan just made the spasms worse. ‘She groaned when I said I couldn’t do Croatia either.’ Connie had cancelled her Jungfrau Express tour, which should have started a week ago, as soon as she realized she wasn’t shaking off the chest infection. But she’d assumed she would be well enough for the Croatian trip. It took in the beautiful Plitvice Lakes and the Postojna Cave, which she’d not yet seen and had been really looking forward to. It was a thirteen-night tour, though, which she knew would be exhausting.

A thought flashed across her mind. Will Jared know I’ve cancelled? She silently chided herself. But a small part of her still had not fully accepted that she would never see him again. ‘So that’s me done for the year,’ she added quickly. Croatia was her last booking before the European tour season ended.

Devan shot her a sympathetic look as he drove. But she knew he must be secretly relieved. He’d been really worried about her. Too much medical knowledge was sometimes a burden, with mutterings of pneumonia, collapsed lung, broken ribs and heart problems as he watched her body torn apart with the paroxysms. ‘Are you upset?’ he asked.

‘Bit disappointed. I’m never ill, as you know.’ She thought back to when she’d last spent a whole day in bed and couldn’t recall a single one.

There was silence. Then Devan glanced at her again. ‘Listen … You don’t have to retire next year if you don’t want to, Connie.’ He was concentrating on the road again. ‘I know you said you would. But you love it so much … you can always change your mind.’

Connie’s eyes filled with tears. Her husband had controlled himself valiantly since she’d been ill, not once digging at her about the job being too much for her. But as she began to show signs of recovery, she had thought he might bring it up again. Although, quite honestly, the thought of going anywhere at the moment, let alone on a long train ride across Europe managing forty passengers, made her feel quite faint.

‘Thanks … Maybe see how things go,’ she said, reaching over to lay a hand on his arm as they pulled into the car park next to the abbey. But Devan was scrabbling about in the well under the dashboard for coins, almost as if he were self-conscious about finally meeting her halfway on the issue.