Dr Janus floated back and sat down. ‘Mrs Campbell, the baby’s heartbeat is slightly irregular indicating a measure of distress. I’ve told your daughter she must stay in bed all day today. I want her to rest. I will come back just after midday and again this evening.’ She took a card out of her bag. ‘This is my number; you must ring immediately if you are worried. Please do not look alarmed, all the indications are that your daughter has had a fright of some kind and everything will settle down. She seems calmer, but anxious to speak to you, James. This is not the ideal time. On the other hand, she has a need to talk. Please will you go easy, lah? Stop immediately if she becomes distressed or unwell?’

Mohktar nodded and got up from his chair. ‘I will go now.’

Fleur got up too. ‘I’ll just go and see if Nikki needs anything before you go in.’

Mohktar said to Fleur quietly as she passed him, ‘Trust me, Mrs Campbell. Your daughter’s welfare is my priority.’

Fleur nodded. She did trust him.

When she returned, Dr Janus said quietly, ‘I have known James Mohktar since childhood…’ She smiled. ‘He was always wise, even as a child. He will proceed gently.’

She placed her hands on the table and stared at them a moment. They were small hands, the fingers thin and neat. Fleur stared at them too. She felt strange and detached, as if she was going to float away.

‘I must go and open my clinic.’ Dr Janus’s voice came from a long way away. ‘Even now there will be a queue waiting, squatting outside my door in the hot sun…’ She gave Fleur a searching look. ‘Mrs Campbell, I believe the best thing for you and your daughter is to go home soon. Nikki will need a hospital examination before she can fly. The longer you leave it, the more risky it becomes. I think a long stay here is unhealthy for both of you.’

She smiled and was gone. Fleur looked out over the beach, mesmerised by two men playing with huge kites: one blue; one red. The amah came out to collect up the glasses.

Fleur smiled. ‘Thank you.’

She was watching herself from a distance, detached, but her voice sounded fine. She turned and went into her room and shut the door. Her head throbbed and she took two paracetamol and crawled under the mosquito net and lay on the newly made bed.

She wanted to be home, in London, in her little safe house where she could close the door against everything; where the smell of Fergus’s whisky and cigarettes still lingered in the curtains and air of his study. Where she would sit sometimes in his swivel chair to pretend he had just popped out to walk the dog or to buy a newspaper or cigarettes. Fergus. Constant and loving as the seasons.

He isn’t here now because all that happened took its toll on him too. He drank too much, he smoked too much…he gave too much. He died before he was sixty. And here I am, still alive.