‘What?’ said Holly, annoyed that her thoughts had been interrupted. But now, there was Freida’s voice again, shaky, describing a room at King’s. Describing a choice that she made, that she wished she could remake. There it was, recorded. Undeniable. She regretted what she’d created. They’d found her hiding place but she had disappeared, again, leaving no answer, only this record of the fact that she thought FullLife was wrong; she thought Holly was wrong. Her whole life. Holly’s whole life.

Holly wanted to be sick. But Eva was there again.

‘There’s something else,’ she said.

Piotr had followed her out to the hall now – was looking at Eva again with that admiration that was starting to make Holly want to scream.

‘There’s a note,’ she was saying, and then she was handing it to Holly, who read:

I have left my lighthouse and gone to live with Declan Ross. If you want me, you can phone me, and I might even answer. 01862 4365117.

Holly looked at Piotr, who looked at Eva, who looked at Holly.

‘Who in heaven’s name is Declan Ross?’

Chapter 17

DECLAN ROSS WAS concerned about his rhubarb. True, it was December, but it was a mild winter, it had barely dropped below freezing, and back in November he’d been walking along the beach in no more than his shirtsleeves. So he had expected, reasonably, he felt, to get another crop of rhubarb before Christmas.

He was down on his hands and knees, in his garden trousers, in his wellies, inspecting the rhubarb patch when Bea came out with the phone. Why he’d ever let her persuade him to go cordless was a mystery – a phone wasn’t supposed to reach you in the garden. It was wrong, all wrong.

‘Is it a bit dark for gardening, Dec?’

Bea, it seemed, was wielding his torch as well as the cordless landline.

‘Not at all,’ he said, peering at the ground and pretending not to have seen the phone.

‘You can have the torch,’ she said. ‘If you take the call.’

She was swinging the torch back and forth by its strap, looped over her little finger.

‘Or you can come in for tea,’ she said.

‘You drive a hard—’

‘If you take the call.’

Something in her tone made him look up and forget about his rhubarb.

‘I think you’ll want to speak to them,’ she said, offering him an arm so he could pull himself up. ‘They’re asking for Freida.’

‘Good lord.’

Declan stood up, stretched his back. Thought about what she’d just said.

‘Are you sure, love?’

She nodded.

‘Good lord.’

He took the phone and held it to his ear. Bea waited, her arm looped through his.

‘Good lord,’ he said, into the phone. And then, as if realising he was now speaking on the phone for the first time, ‘Hello?’