It was such a relief to say it. ‘Yes! Oh yes.’ How sure I had been that he would come for me in the heavy dark of some night.

‘Can you remember if this man seemed tall or average height?’

‘Tall,’ I said, without hesitation. ‘He was tall.’

Mohktar said, almost to himself. ‘I wonder if that was why those ladies remembered the slamming of the door. It was not the door that woke them, but the odd panic noises they heard in the dark.’

We stared at each other. ‘Have I always known who, and buried it?’

‘Perhaps.’ Mohktar said and his face was sad. He knelt in the sand and took my hand and held it between both his own as if it was something precious. I was so glad of his warmth.

‘I am not sure my mother can bear it.’

‘I am not sure she should have to.’

I looked at him in surprise. He let go of my hand gently.

‘To believe a man is guilty is one thing, but to prove it after twenty-eight years is another, Nikki. It will now be Inspector Blythe’s job and that of the English police.’

I smiled bleakly. ‘You can go home to Singapore?’

‘Yes.’ He said. ‘And you, Nikki, can also go home. The body of your sister is being released. I heard today. Will you and your mother be able to bury her and move on, do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I feel confused. I should want justice and vengeance, but all I see is more hurt for Fleur. A part of my mother and a part of me died twenty-eight years ago and maybe something in this man died too. Maybe he has lived his whole life remembering each morning what he did and he has died a little death every day.’

‘It is what I believe too.’ Mohktar said.

‘What is your Christian name…your first name? Why have I forgotten?’

Mohktar smiled. ‘It is James.’

I smiled back. ‘Has it always been James?’

‘No, but it was cool to have an English name at school. My mother was a James Bond fan, lah?’

I laughed. I like you, James Mohktar. Perhaps the thought registered in my eyes for something passed between us, then we both looked away.

He helped me up, smiling at my awkwardness. I said, as we walked back to the house, ‘I want to look forward, to be happy or at least aspire to happiness. To have the possibility of joy and to give it, for once. I want to wake without the shadow and jerk of remembrance. I want to wonder about all the things a new day might bring.’

I stopped in the sand. ‘Is it selfish and wicked to want happiness when Saffie is dead?’ I touched my stomach. ‘I want a happy baby, James. I want a new life. I want to forget and begin again, as if all this…’ I waved my hand to where all the colonial rest houses had once stood. ‘…and my childhood was a life I once had but can leave behind me. I’ve spent so long mourning Saffie, blaming my mother. Is it shocking of me to want to move on and away? Is it?’