‘I never said that.’ Leon takes two from him, hands one to Alice. ‘They’ll help us walk on the rocks; it’s bound to be slippery out there.’ He sets off, the rain heavier now, soaking through his jacket, dripping off his hair.

Alice and Mitch follow, and once around the bend it becomes clear what Leon saw.

‘Oh my God,’ Alice cries, covering her mouth with her hand.

Leon moves forward, crouches down.

‘What the hell is it doing out here?’ Alice’s voice trembles as she comes up behind him.

‘I’ve no idea.’ Leon shakes his head, stares up at her with bewildered eyes. He tries to take her hand, but she pulls free, distraught.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Mitch says, coming up behind them.

‘It’s my dress,’ Alice cries, crouching and dragging it from the sea, soaking herself as she tries to wring water from it. ‘It’s my yellow dress. What the hell is it doing out here?’

Chapter 19

1988

Verity

‘Get a room, Hugh, for Christ’s sake,’ Verity said, hearing the slur in her voice. Drinking too much had become a way of life. She needed to slow up. She knew that. She was twenty-one, no longer a rebellious teenager. No longer the kid who lived on the Bristol streets fighting for survival with her brother.

She flopped her head back on the grass, and stared at the star-dotted night sky. The tang of cannabis, and the sound of Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ floated across the lawns, where students from the university sprawled in clusters.

Verity and Hugh weren’t students, though they liked hanging out as though they were. Hugh worked in a factory, and Verity was a shop assistant working on the pick ’n’ mix counter in Woolworths, which didn’t help her weight problem.

She closed her eyes, wondering how she could prise her brother away from his latest fling, without sounding like the overprotective older sister she knew she was. Couldn’t Pippa see he was using her, like he’d used all the others since he’d morphed into a man?

Maybe Verity should go to her lodgings. Leave them to it. He would tire of her soon enough. He always did.

She sat up, dragged on her cardigan. ‘I’m going back. You two are making me want to puke.’

Pippa looked up from kissing Hugh, and laughed. She couldn’t see how much Verity loathed her. That Verity could happily throw up at the sight of her body entwined with her brother’s.