‘Hello, darling. Trust my granddaughter to live in the middle of nowhere! My dear girl, you are much too thin…’ She took her daughter’s arm. ‘Fleur, it must have been awful…awful. We felt helpless so far away. I don’t think we stopped thinking of you and Nikki once.’

Laura’s face was anxious and Fleur squeezed her mother’s arm. ‘Thanks, Mum, I’m fine. It’s been wonderful to have Sam. Come on, let’s get you into the car.’

On the long drive back to the house, Peter and Laura were too tired to make much conversation, and within half an hour were asleep in the back of the car.

Sam glanced at Fleur. ‘It’s going to take them a few days to acclimatise. They don’t go anywhere now, you know. I don’t think they would have survived the journey if they’d had to fly from England. I’m glad we decided to leave Saffie’s funeral until next week.’

‘Jack says Nikki is still hoping to bring the baby back. What do you think, Sam?’

‘Not a chance! She was a prem and is still underweight. It’s not as if Nikki and Jack live in the middle of Auckland. Besides, Nikki will still be weak. She haemorrhaged twice. If it wasn’t for special circumstances, I doubt they’d let her out of hospital yet, either.’

‘We need to bury Saffie, Sam. Nikki won’t relax or move on until it’s done.’

‘I know,’ Sam said quietly. ‘I know.’

Fleur and Sam had had time to talk while Jack stayed up in Auckland with Nikki and the baby. They had never spent time together as two adults and probably never would again. One night she had told him about David. He had stared at her in disbelief. He had gone through a period of intense hero-worship towards David while he had still been at school, when the few years between them still seemed huge.

‘It never occurred to me…not once,’ he said to Fleur. ‘David was always surrounded by pretty girls and flirted all the time. It all makes sense now, how miserable you were when I was in Melbourne. God, Fleur, I wish you’d said something, at least to me. I could have protected you from Mum; she was so hard on you.’

‘If you tell one person, Sam, you might as well tell the world. I wanted to protect David and the twins.’

She told him about their time in Port Dickson and how and why Saffie might have died. It was hard for Sam to take this in and he was deeply upset.

‘What a brave woman you are, Fleury.’

‘I had Fergus for most of my life…easier to be brave with him, and now I don’t have a choice. I can’t let the past destroy me, Sam. I have Nikki and a granddaughter. I have you, and old parents whom I love.’

‘I’m glad you had Fergus. My God you deserved him.’ Sam had hugged her fiercely, shaken with all the implications surfacing.