‘Is this the boundary, then, the edge of the estate or something?’

‘Nah,’ Ethan said. ‘These woods are all part of it.’

‘What’s in there?’

He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Dunno. Let’s find out, shall we? Come on.’

He set off down the path into the trees, on his own.

Jake turned to Lucy. ‘You coming?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It’s got to be cooler in the woods than it is out here.’

Chapter 18

18

My book lay unread in my lap. Every time I picked it up and read a few lines, my mind slid off in another direction as I wrestled with the painful truth of my husband’s infidelity: the poison at the heart of our marriage.

Sean had been upstairs having a nap since we returned from the beach. It seemed incredible to me that he could act perfectly normal, that he could appear normal, in the face of what he’d done and what he was still doing. How could he carry on this pretence so blatantly that he wasn’t even wearing his wedding ring any more? What had Rowan whispered to him at the beach? Was Russ right to suspect her of having an affair? It was exhausting thinking about it all the time. I sat up on the sunlounger and looked around. Russ was pushing Odette around the pool on a pink lilo. Rowan was nowhere to be seen. Alistair was wandering around the gardens with his mobile, snapping pictures of . . . I wasn’t really sure what he was taking pictures of. He turned his back to me and held up the phone again, zooming in on something. A bird in the tree, maybe? He was a bit too far away.

I lay back on the lounger and closed my eyes, the bright sunshine an orange glow behind my eyelids. Tonight, the four of us were going out for dinner: Rowan, Jennifer, Izzy and me. I was going to have to be careful, keep my emotions in check, because right now every time I opened my mouth I felt like I was going to cry or confess everything – especially if someone tried to be nice to me. I was coiled up so tightly with worry and fear and desperation that it felt as if it might burst out of me at any moment. But I had to keep a lid on all of that long enough to make sense of what was happening. If I could get on the front foot, find out what Sean was doing, I could prepare myself for what was coming. And maybe that would mean a better chance of keeping my family together.

A shadow fell over me, a figure blocking out the light.

‘Kate?’ It was Jennifer, the sun creating a halo of light around her head.

I opened my eyes, summoning a smile.

‘Hi, what’s up?’

‘Have you seen Jake? Or Ethan?’

‘Not recently, no. Not since we—’