‘I’ve told you about my friend, Robert,’ she began, ‘and that we’ve broken up.’ Michael nodded. ‘Well, his wife died a few years ago, but he has a stepdaughter, who he’s extremely fond of.’ Romy swallowed hard. ‘She’s thirty-two now, apparently. And her name is Grace. Grace …’ She realized she didn’t know Grace’s surname – Nell’s before she’d married Finch.

Michael was watching her, impassively.

‘She’s called Grace Twiston now.’ Romy stared back, searching his face for the tiniest twitch. ‘I don’t know what her surname was when she was sixteen.’ Michael still didn’t speak, but she saw a flicker of something in his eyes.

Her husband pulled himself up on the pillows, his expression hard to read. Romy waited. He knows what I’m talking about, she thought. He knows.

‘Her name was Fleetwood,’ Michael said. ‘Grace Fleetwood.’

41

At the sound of Grace’s name on Michael’s lips, Romy felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. The bedroom air was stagnant and suffocating, as she waited for him to go on. He was very still, propped against the headboard as if he were carved in stone, no muscle moving except the rapid blinking of his eyelids. But he didn’t say a word for what seemed like an eternity, and neither did she – shaken, after all this time, that her husband had finally admitted knowing the girl.

When Michael began to speak, his voice was calm, his words measured. Romy was sure he had carefully rehearsed them – as meticulously, even, as he might his summing up to a jury. He did not meet her eye, just stared straight ahead towards the blank television screen on the far wall.

‘I’m going to tell you exactly what happened. Please let me finish before you say anything. I know this is a she said/he said situation, and I want you to hear it as I remember it.’

Romy nodded, although he still did not turn his head to look at her. She clutched her hands in her lap, a shiver passing through her body.

Michael took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. ‘Grace was a very beautiful girl,’ he began, ‘not just beautiful, but also lively and charismatic, someone who laughed a lot. All those fraught clients and impossible caseloads … the atmosphere was heavy with tension most days.’ He sighed. ‘And Grace breezed in, like a breath of fresh air, cheering us all up.’

Romy waited for him to continue. His manner of speaking made it sound like the beginning of a fairytale. Not real life; not his life.