What Verity hadn’t expected when Pippa died, was how devastated her brother would be. The way he was drowning in unbearable, inconsolable grief had come as a shock. She would have expected him to be sad, yes. That she would have to care for him as she always had done, yes. Rebuild him, yes. But this was different. This was a road – Anguish Avenue or Bereavement Boulevard or Sadness Street – and he was travelling it alone, on a desperate journey without her.

*

‘Are you going to name the child?’ she asked her brother, when the baby was two weeks old, but Hugh, cocooned in his duvet, humming of body odour, didn’t reply.

When the baby was three weeks old, Verity stood in the doorway of Hugh’s dark bedroom once more. ‘The child needs a name, Hugh,’ she said.

He peered out from under his duvet, still sick with grief, his face pale; cushions of darkness under his eyes and said, ‘I can’t do it, Verity. I want to. But I can’t.’

The baby was a month old when Verity took hold of her brother’s hand and squeezed. He was flopped on the sofa, had been drinking heavily. ‘You still need to give your child a name,’ she tried once more, showing him the baby pressed against her body in a sling.

‘Tiger,’ Hugh said, his voice a slur.

‘Tiger?’

‘Strong. Brave. A survivor.’

‘Really? You want to call your baby after a wild animal?’

He turned to face Verity, looked deep into her eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘OK, but it’s not enough to just name the child after a predator, Hugh. This baby needs you.’

He stared long and hard at the child snuggled against Verity, his eyes – those eyes – melting her stone heart. He was the only one who could do that. He looked up at Verity. ‘I’m sorry, I’m going to be a crap dad for a while,’ he said. ‘I don’t even know how to begin. Give me time, V. I will get there. I just need your support. Help me get through this, and when I come out the other side, we’ll be a family – you, me and Tiger. Will you do that for me?’

‘I will,’ she said, her mind churning, spinning, planning. ‘If you’re sure it’s what you want.’

‘It is,’ he said. ‘It really is.’

Chapter 26

Halloween Weekend 2019

Alice

Christine shuffles into her anorak, pulls on her beanie, and grabs two torches from behind the reception desk. She tests they both work, and says, ‘Right, I’ll wait here for you folks, while you get your coats from your rooms.’

Once upstairs, Faith continues along the landing to her room, as Alice and Leon unlock the door to theirs. ‘See you in a bit,’ Faith calls, raising her hand in a wave.

‘I’m so sorry this has turned into a nightmare,’ Leon says, once they are inside.