‘It’s okay,’ Rachel said, ‘you don’t have to say anything. Just rest.’

But he was insistent, already mumbling, fumbling with the plastic. Rachel glanced at the nurse, who nodded. Rachel’s fingers brushed against Cullen’s as she lifted the mask and gently pulled it over his head. He looks so small, she thought, and could not balance this with the man she had known for the past five years.

‘Rachel,’ he managed, half whispering.

‘I’m here,’ she told him. ‘It’s all right. You’re at the hospital—’

‘Stupid,’ he muttered, ‘so stupid. Should have—’ he wheezed, words lost in struggling breath.

‘It’s all right,’ Rachel said, more firmly. ‘You’re in good hands. Don’t worry about a thing, Cullen, just get better.’

‘No,’ he said, his voice momentarily stronger. ‘It’s not all right. I always meant to give it to you, Rachel. I meant for you to have it. But I didn’t know—’ he coughed, gasping for air. ‘Stupid. So stupid.’

‘Please,’ she begged him, as the nurse hovered. ‘Don’t worry about anything right now.’

‘Listen,’ he said, his breath barely there. ‘In the ceiling. Behind… the paper. I didn’t know what to do. And… selfish, but…’ his words were lost beneath another storm of wheezing coughs, but Cullen struggled on regardless. ‘Wanted… wanted to keep the bookshop…’

‘That’s enough,’ said the nurse, flicking a switch and moving to replace the oxygen mask over Cullen’s mouth and nose. ‘You should leave.’

Cullen grabbed the nurse’s wrist with a last burst of the strength that had typified his life. He held the mask away from his face as he looked at Rachel.

‘Behind the paper,’ he said again, but then his voice gave out. A long, piercing note sounded from one of the machines beside his bed.

‘Please,’ said the nurse, glancing over her shoulder at Rachel as she slammed her palm down on an alarm button. ‘You have to leave now.’

Cullen would not let go of her hand. Rachel had to pull hers free. The sound of running feet echoed down the corridor behind her. Cullen’s fingers slipped from hers and Rachel backed out of the room, her last glance of him a man drowning beneath hands trying to help him.

She went out into the bleak white corridor, the feel of his hand still ghosting against hers. The tell-tale monotone of the heart monitor failed to ignite into anything more animated, and when that same young nurse came to talk to her, Rachel already knew that Cullen was gone.

Outside there were stars overhead. She walked clear of the hospital’s entrance and breathed night air. She had to ask a passing stranger for the time. He looked at her strangely, as if the concept of not possessing some form of device that would tell her made her alien, which she supposed it did. It was approaching 8.30 p.m., which meant that if Rachel hurried she might be able to catch the last bus to Newton Dunbar, which left at 8.45. She fretted over the idea of poor Eustace being fed so late, and wondered if Cullen had fed him for her, and then realized that of course Cullen had done no such thing, because he was dead.