And Cami told Cousin Luis, Finch thought. Suddenly all the stuff he’d been holding at bay swooped back, like a flock of starlings, to surround him. He sighed. ‘It’s not just about Nell.’ And then, with the next breath, he was telling Marty everything about his wife’s death. Every detail of those months when he’d watched her eyes become too bright as her face thinned and yellowed, saw her shoulder blades cutting through her delicate skin, the knobbled ridges of her spine as he washed her, the way she shook when she tried to stand. He told this stranger of the agonies he had kept hidden, almost cherished, since she died. Who else could he have told who might understand? And when he’d finished, there were tears pouring down his face.

Of course it’s about Nell. Grace was Nell’s daughter who reminded him of her constantly and whom he’d vowed to protect. Romy was a guilty pleasure, a betrayal of his perfect wife, the perfect love they’d shared, however much he told himself – and Romy – different.

Marty nodded intermittently, listened to his long and rambling account without speaking.

Finch thought of his endless chats with Nell’s photograph. ‘Just recently, though, I was beginning to appreciate things again,’ he insisted, suddenly desperate to acknowledge Romy and everything she’d meant to him. ‘But now …’ He told Marty the bare bones of what had happened with Grace.

‘Wow, cruel.’ The American whistled. ‘So you headed out, left them all to it?’

It sounded, as Marty said it, like the most craven thing Finch had ever done. He felt himself becoming hot with indignation. ‘I needed a break.’

Marty held his hand up. ‘Hey, I’m not judging. I did far worse when I lost Beth. Drugs, whiskey, self-pity, the lot.’ He chuckled. ‘Riding around the Gutierrez spread with a bunch of gauchos is tame by comparison.’ He took another gulp of wine. ‘But this stepdaughter of yours, doesn’t she need your help right now?’

Finch thought of Grace, listened back, in his head, to the conversation they’d had about him going to Argentina. Heard, as loud as if she were talking right now, that she didn’t want him to go. He was ashamed. He had known at the time but chosen not to focus, consumed with his broken heart.