He kissed the soft place just below her ear.

“We used to think our parents would be waiting for us at the other end of the journey,” Ava whispered. “I don’t know if I believe that any more. And if they are, what are they going to say? What will they say to me when I get there and tell them I’ve left Finn all alone?”

He thought of Ellen, of what she’d say to Alicia, of what she’d say to him. He swallowed. “They’ll say you did your best.”

“My best wasn’t good enough.”

“Our best never is. But it’s all we can do.”

She turned towards him and pressed her face into his chest and wept, in total silence, her whole body trembling. He held her until it passed, and then suddenly she was kissing him and he had the taste of her tears in his mouth. Salty, like blood. Like the sea.

When he woke again, his legs and chest were wrapped in a warm cocoon but his shoulders and neck were freezing. A thin colourless light leeched in through the window. After a minute, Ava came in. He could see now the drag of her left leg when she walked, the weakness in her hands as she pushed the door shut. Her face was scrubbed clean of tears.

“The tide’s gone out,” she said.

Her words turned his knees to cold water. The time for waiting was finished. Now it was time to act again. Would he find his daughter? Was she safe? Would she come back to him? The thought took all his strength, so he would have to do without strength.

The sands were very clean and smooth. Astonishing, how little the sea left behind – the thinnest trail of seaweed, the occasional pebble, the ripples in the sand’s surface that looked like the roof of a mouth. He held tightly to Ava’s hand, noticing the unsteadiness in her walk, forcing himself to push his body forward and forward in time and space.

As they glanced towards the headland, Ava screamed and dropped his hand. Then she was running clumsily over the sands, the left leg trailing, and he wanted to run after her, but instead he found he was on his knees, tears pouring down his cheeks and dropping into the seawater that pooled in the ripples beneath him as he whispered over and over and over, Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.

From the direction of the caves, two bedraggled figures stumbled across the sand towards them.

Chapter Twenty-one: Midwinter Day

Midwinter day was cold and still, as if the ocean was holding its breath. Finn carried Ava down from the beach hut towards the place where George’s raft waited. She was deep in the embrace of the morphine now, a faint smile on the thin taut flesh of her face. Finn laid her on the raft and stroked her cheek tenderly. Her breathing was shallow and there was a faint blue tinge to her skin.