‘I just needed to apologise to you both,’ she said. ‘You and Pete. I was a total bitch to you both that night. I know it’s, like, decades ago, but I’m so sorry. And then when I learned what sparked Caitlin’s first breakdown, I felt even worse. I had no idea she’d even seen us on that silo. Or that she was so crazy about me. I’d just thought it was a casual thing.’ She had the grace to look sheepish. ‘I was pretty promiscuous back in those days,’ she added.

Meredith remembered the girl with the short black curls who’d been at Cohen’s first ever gig, and who Pete had seen Samantha kissing. The fist of jealousy and grief in her belly when he told her about them. She smiled ruefully. ‘I think we were both unlucky to have encountered Caitlin,’ she said.

‘She found out that I was teaching at KU – the University of Kansas – and wrote me, you know,’ Samantha said. ‘A few times, in the nineties. I feel bad about that, too. I ought to have passed the letters on to the police and then she might have been stopped, but at the time I just thought they were the rantings of a lunatic. She kept going on and on about you, and how we’d ruined her life, and that she’d make us both pay. She would “sort you out” first then come for me. But I knew she was locked up, so I just never took it seriously. Then that time the police interviewed me about a blackmail attempt, I was mortified that you might think the letter really had been from me. If they’d told me about your attack, I could’ve helped, but I didn’t know. I just thought it was about the blackmail. I’d have known it was her doing, straight away. She was lucky to have found that guy who’d do anything for her.’

‘Or we were unlucky,’ Pete contributed from the sofa.

‘That too,’ Samantha said, looking as if she was going to cry. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’

Meredith smiled at her. ‘Yeah. It’s not your fault. Thanks for taking time to come and find me.’

‘Couldn’t come over to show Shelley your beautiful country and not see you, could I? We’re going walking in the Lake District next week.’

‘Lovely,’ Meredith said. ‘Pete and I are off on holiday next month too. My first holiday in over twenty years. I can’t believe it.’

And now here they were, on the plane, and Meredith did finally believe it. She looked down at her hands, one grasping each armrest, the skin on the backs of them both now of a uniform colour and smoothness. Pete wasn’t the only one who’d had surgery in the past year.