A sharp, shooting pain pierced her head and the last thing she felt was the hard, tiled floor as she hit the ground.

Chapter Nineteen

Lodge 174, Conmere, Sunday, 12 May, 1.00 a.m.

‘Steph, Steph? Are you OK?’

The voice sounded distant, as if her name was being spoken through a handkerchief or from the other side of a closed window. Steph moved her head and winced. It felt like a bowling ball slamming around inside her skull. ‘That hurts,’ she mumbled.

‘Steph? Open your eyes. It’s me, Harry.’

This time his voice was clear and she did as he requested, seeing his face peering down at her, his eyes filled with concern. ‘Hey, you had me worried there for a moment.’

She went to raise her head, but it hurt too much and she lay back down, gradually becoming aware of her surroundings. She was lying on the sofa of her lodge, a pillow was under her head and Harry was perched on the coffee table next to her. For a moment she couldn’t think what had happened and then the memory rolled to the front of her mind. She gave a gasp and her eyes frantically scanned the room. ‘Who’s here?’ she said, looking back at Harry.

‘It’s OK. It’s just me and you. No one is here.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah. Just us. What happened?’

‘More to the point, what are you doing here?’ Despite the thudding in her head, Steph sat up and leaned back into the sofa, pulling her hand away from Harry’s. ‘How did you get in?’

Harry sat back with his hands in a surrender position. ‘It’s all right, Steph. I’m not going to hurt you. I found you on the floor. I thought you’d passed out or something.’

Steph wasn’t convinced. ‘But you went … you left me. Why did you come back?’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s one o’clock in the morning.’

‘I walked you back to your lodge, remember? You came in and I went back to the gala dinner.’

‘Yeah, so why did you come back?’ she repeated. She remembered that and she remembered going to bed. She also remembered with clarity what had happened next.

Harry looked a little embarrassed. ‘I felt bad about how we’d left things. I suppose, in my wisdom, I thought I could try to explain things better so you’d realise that I wasn’t as bad as you thought I was.’ He drummed his fingers on his knee. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time, but, now I’m saying it out loud, it sounds rather lame.’

‘So you came back, but how did you get in?’ Steph asked, keen to get back to the facts.

‘Your door was ajar. I called out your name and when I got no answer I came right in. Saw you flat out on the floor.’