“No problem.”

“We used to talk about this, you see,” Ava said. “When Finn – when we – you know, when things were tough. About coming to live on the beach. No-one to disturb us. Could you do something else for me?”

“I thought we weren’t going to be friends.”

“Please.”

He was tired of this now. “What is it?”

“Could you not tell Finn where I was and who I met?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Please. If you wouldn’t mind. Don’t tell him I went to meet my husband. Finn wouldn’t understand.”

“When would I ever even speak to him to tell him?”

“Just if he happened to come and see you or anything.”

The wind was tugging at her hair again. He checked the impulse to tuck the strands behind her ear. “Look, are you – are you in trouble? Do you need help? Because I can put you in touch with people who… ”

“Oh, oceans of trouble,” said Ava. “More trouble than you can possibly imagine. But I’ll get out of it all right.”

“Why would your brother mind you talking to your husband? Why would he care? What the hell did he do to you?”

“Finn? Or Paul?”

“Either of them.”

“It’s still your turn,” she told him.

He stood with his car keys in his hand and watched as she picked her way delicately across the car park.

Chapter Eight: 1995

The car park was rammed and the queue was seventeen cars long, but the battered Vauxhall waited patiently for forty minutes, finally squeezing between two Fiestas. After a minute, the doors opened and four people clambered out. The car’s engine ticked softly as it cooled.

“Look at that,” said Finn, gazing at the beach and sighing with pleasure.

“It’s fabulous,” Ava agreed.

“It’s crowded,” ventured Paul.

“I’m going to the loo,” said Caroline. “Then let’s find the hotel and unpack.”

“Let’s go down to the beach first,” said Finn.

“I’ve been in the car for seven hours. I want a bath.”

“You can wash in the sea,” coaxed Finn, following Caroline across the car park.

“I don’t want to wash in the sea, I want a bath in a proper bathroom. I feel grubby.”

“You look fine,” Finn told her.

“Fine?”

“Beautiful. You look beautiful.”

“Look, we’ll talk about it in a minute, all right?”

“Your brother,” Paul said to Ava, “is hopeless with women.”

“It’s Caroline’s fault,” said Ava. “What’s the matter with her? Who comes on holiday to sit in a bath?”

“I wouldn’t mind sitting in a bath with you,” Paul murmured.

“Well, I don’t think that was the sort of bath Caroline meant.”

Paul put an arm around Ava’s shoulder and tried to pull her towards him. She didn’t push him away exactly, but she remained separate and still, gazing across the spill of people towards the ocean.

“At least the weather’s nice,” he said after a minute.

“What do you mean, at least?”

Paul looked at the battered parade of seaside shops. Faded postcards on wire racks, flaky sticks of elderly pink rock, buckets and spades dangling from torn canopies like rabbits in a butcher’s shop. The pebble-dashed concrete of the public toilets. “It’s not exactly Alicante, is it?”