“She gave you the earrings.” Emily stared at Beth, taking in the hair now cropped close to her head, the deeper lines around the eyes, the softening of skin at her throat. “And it was you, stood next to Antoine in the photograph.”

“What photograph?”

“In Paris. By the bookstore.”

“My goodness, I’d forgotten all about that. Trust Catriona to have it all this time.”

“No, it wasn’t her.”

Beth didn’t catch the words Emily whispered because she had picked up her case and stashed it behind the front desk. Nor did she see the way Emily was staring at nothing as they walked, side by side, feeling a little off-kilter, a little faint, because she was thinking back to that bookstore in Paris, to the place where they had all met and how very, very envious she was that it couldn’t have been her life instead.

Six people, brought together by a twist of fate. Their lives interlinked in so many ways, most recently by another death, but also the possibility of a new beginning. Her new beginning, and she saw how they had all played their part in bringing her back here, each of them carrying out her grandmother’s wishes, and yet she still didn’t understand why.

Beth took her to a familiar room, with a large desk at the far end. On top was a computer, a stack of papers, and a silver photo frame that held a photograph of a family Emily had never met. Her eyes flickered to the back of the room, where an old-fashioned music system still sat, nestled in amongst books, photographs, and keepsakes.

Emily went over to it, knelt down on the floor in the same spot as she always used to. She felt the room sway a little as she remembered all the time she had spent in here, locked away on her own, listening to music and painting pictures of everything she couldn’t say.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Emily thought of her grandmother’s funeral, of all the people paying their respects. Some of them had been complicit in keeping a secret from her.

“She made us promise not to.”

“She wouldn’t have known.”

“But we would.”

Emily wished she could put those six friends back together again, take their photograph once more, have them share a bottle of wine or two over a long meal, swap stories of their lives as they laughed and reminisced and swore not to leave it so long before next they met.

Except that would never happen. Two of the six were dead, and Emily wasn’t certain she would ever be able to get Antoine and Noah in the same room for more than a few minutes before they started arguing. But then death does strange things to people, makes them act completely out of character.

They were the people who had shaped Catriona, made her the woman she became.

Every single interaction, no matter how small, has an impact on who you turn out to be. Every conversation, every disappointment, every touch, they all combine into one huge mess called life.