Mohktar was silent. It was true. A dream, so real to Nikki, was not evidence. He was about to speak when Blythe added, ‘On the other hand it’s the nearest to a motive we’ve had. It would have been a terrible scandal in the Seventies. If you had been an ambitious career officer who thought a child was taunting you about where she had seen you before, it might be tempting to grab her on the spur of the moment, in temper…’

‘And kill her by mistake?’

‘Yes. Literally ring her neck. Let’s go back to the office and go through the files and check who the high-flyers were. I wonder if it is possible to jiggle Miss Montrose’s memory some more.’

THIRTY-SEVEN

Nikki slept for six hours. Fleur too slept for a long time that afternoon. The nice Doctor Janus had seemed more worried about her than Nikki. When Fleur woke it was to a sense of unreality and to the feeling that this moment, as Fergus had warned her, had been inevitable. She had never wavered in her conviction that no one needed to know about David; not her parents, not Sam, certainly not David’s parents.

She wanted the twins to keep the memory of the wonderful father David had been. She did not want their time with him spoilt by any shadows. It was no one’s business. Both she and Fergus wanted him to remain David, not a whispered scandal.

They paid a price for their silence but they expected to. The only thing they disagreed on was explaining to Nikki when she was grown-up. Fergus thought she had a right to know and he felt Nikki and Fleur’s relationship might improve if she did know, but Fleur had been adamant.

Frangipani and the faraway cries of children on the edge of the sea came in on the wind. The overhead fan made the leaves of her book flutter gently inside the mosquito net. Fleur felt torpid, her body heavy and lifeless, the heat pressing her down on the bed with the weight of her memories.

That faraway day in a military hospital when she didn’t want to know what David was trying to tell her. Refused to listen; did not want to hear any words that might burst her safe little bubble. Then, years later, the moment it became clear, the moment he had told her. The night the sky fell in. When the world stopped for one clear beat of time and was never the same again.

Tidworth Military Hospital, 1971

Fleur was lying in the maternity ward, her feet raised, trying to keep as still as she could, terrified of dislodging the tiny lives inside her. Please, God, she kept saying in her head over and over. Please, God, don’t let me miscarry; please let me keep my babies…please…please.

The gynaecologist, a colonel, had sat by her bed. ‘Fleur,’ he said. ‘Nature has a way of taking care of things. It’s wretched, I know, but if you miscarry it will be because a full term pregnancy is not viable.’