Anna held her breath. How did he know? Was there something strange and supernatural going on here after all? It seemed as if he’d peered inside her skull and recited back to her all the things she was thinking and feeling but could never tell anyone.

‘And when life changes suddenly and unexpectedly,’ he continued, ‘there’s a grieving of what was and what never can be again. I would call that being human.’

That all sounded very logical, which was reassuring. He could just be telling her what she wanted to hear, of course, to get the hysterical woman off the phone, but even so, his words had the weight of truth about them. Of experience.

‘Are you human?’ she wanted to ask, but she’d already subjected this poor man to a hefty dollop of her stupidity; he probably didn’t need more. She swallowed the question and took a different tack. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘And sorry… I won’t ring again.’ And then, because it seemed rude not to, she added, ‘Goodnight.’

A pause, as if he was considering her words, as simple as they had been. ‘Goodnight… Anna.’

And then he was gone, cut off by the pad of her thumb on the glass of her phone screen. Goodnight, Anna. There had been no smile in that voice just for her. But there had been something. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Didn’t matter, though, she thought as she stood up, turned off the living room light and headed up the stairs. She wouldn’t be dialling that number ever again.

Chapter Nine

ANNA KEPT HER promise to herself – she didn’t call Spencer’s number again. Or, what turned out to be Spencer’s old number. She did, however, call the mobile phone provider and, after twenty minutes on hold and being rerouted through three different departments, finally the mystery was solved.

She’d been paying for Spencer’s mobile with a joint credit card she no longer used except for that bill. The account was still active, but the card had expired last September. She’d found an urgent email buried under five hundred other unopened messages in her inbox, warning her Spencer’s account would be closed in sixty days if a new payment source was not provided. When that hadn’t happened, his number had been reassigned.

It was her fault that tiny but vital connection to Spencer had been lost. Nothing spooky or supernatural. No act of God or fate or whatever it was that was laughing at her from above the clouds as it toyed with her life. Her own stupid fault. She wished she could rewind time and go back and read the buried email alert before it was too late, to get her lethargic backside into gear and call the phone company.

But she supposed if she’d had the power to do that, she’d have skipped over those inconsequential things and would have gone back to the day Spencer had died. Instead of yelling down at him to get a two-pint carton of milk when he went to the shop, she would have run down the stairs, stopped him as he was opening the door, pinned him against the wall and kissed him senseless. Thirty seconds was all it would have taken, and then that drunk driver would have been further down the road or all the way around the corner. None of this would have happened and she wouldn’t be living this nightmare.