She was both grateful for his offer and relieved the other gawkers had melted away, drama apparently over and nothing more to get their teeth into.

‘Could you tell me the best way to get to that hospital?’ she said.

‘Do you have a car?’ said the man, frowning. ‘It’s a few miles from here.’

Irene shook her head. ‘I can get a taxi though,’ she said.

The man shook his head and drained the last dregs of whatever he had in his mug.

‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ he said. ‘Let me drive you there.’

Irene had hesitated for only a moment. He didn’t seem like someone who might wish her harm and she wanted to get to Michael as soon as she could. Beggars couldn’t always be choosers.

Now she was sitting in the passenger seat of the immaculate car as the old man – Frank, he said his name was – drove onto a costal road. Colin would have known what kind it was; one of those classic ones that men got excited about. Irene tried to distract herself with thoughts like these as she looked out at the sea, which was sparkly silver in the afternoon sunshine. The thought of her Michael crashing into that cold, unforgiving water and being swept away was causing a panic to swell inside that threatened to choke her.

‘How long is it since you saw your son?’ asked Frank, breaking her thoughts.

‘Just a couple of weeks,’ she said and then looked sharply at his profile. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’ She hadn’t meant it to come out so harshly, but he remained impassive, pausing before he replied.

‘I’m not meaning anything, I promise you. I was merely making conversation.’

‘We’re actually very close,’ said Irene hurriedly and he indicated a strange kind of agreement by nodding his head and closing his eyes momentarily.

Fumbling with the little leather tag on her handbag in an attempt to absorb the tremors still running through her, Irene cleared her throat.

‘I don’t think he was trying to kill himself,’ she said and felt Frank turn to her. But even as she said the words, she wasn’t entirely convinced by them.

Maybe things really had reached that stage? Logic seemed to unfurl as a series of stepping stones in her mind now. Michael had one of his mad theories about finding Liam. It led him to this area. Then he discovered that it was all a waste of time. He looked around at his life, his redundancy, his failed relationship with Linda …

Perhaps he concluded that he had little to live for?

But what about his mother? she thought. What about me?

ELLIOTT

As I was gathering my stuff to get ready to leave, Zoe put her head round the door.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Shall we get together to talk about Charney Point?’