The wind whipped at her coat and she held on to its lapels. An old instinct made Paul follow her hands with his eyes. Many times she’d asked him to focus on their rhythmic, deliberate motion while she’d teased out his most troubling thoughts. Eye movement desensitization therapy, they called it.

Now, as her hands disappeared into her pockets, the fears that had been piling up inside him tumbled out: “You always told me I had to forgive myself. But what if Sanderson never forgave me? What if he’s just been biding his time? Waiting to take everything from me . . . like he thinks I did from him?”

“Slow down, Paul. What’s been taken?”

“My daughter. Freya. The one I sent you a picture of when she was a few weeks old.”

That was the last time he’d contacted Yvette before today. He’d sent her the photo eighteen months after he’d finished therapy, as a way of showing her he was doing okay. She’d sent him a note back—he still had it—saying Freya looked a perfect little live wire, her eyes already wide open, curious, alert.

Realization appeared to be dawning in Yvette’s face. Perhaps she’d heard something in the news but not made the connection with Paul. Perhaps half noticed a poster on the way here but not looked closely, not expected it to be the girl whose baby photo she’d once smiled over, thinking that one of her patients had found his happy ending.

13.

EMMA

“What do you mean, fallen through?” Emma roamed around her living room with her phone at her ear, banging into the boxes of stock that she still hadn’t got used to having in her way.

“I’m afraid the buyers have changed their minds,” her real estate agent told her, in a tone that made Emma feel as if he blamed her. Maybe she’d deterred her shop’s buyers by being too openly sad about the sale. Perhaps she should’ve smiled graciously and wished them luck, rather than showing them round with a how-dare-you-buy-my-life sullenness. After all, it wasn’t their fault. It was nobody’s fault, as her mum kept reminding her. So why did she feel so furious?

“They decided to go another way,” the agent added.

“What does that even mean?”

“A different property, I assume.”

They were taking their secondhand electrics elsewhere. Probably to a place with cheaper overheads and higher footfall. Emma had never liked the idea of her shop being filled with rewired TVs, but she needed the money from the sale. Needed it to pay the rent on her flat and settle invoices while she searched for a job. To keep her afloat, in control, for when Zeb came home and everything would be okay.