‘She’s gone after him,’ he said. ‘Limping like she’s been in a bullfight and not a coat on.’ He shook his head. I wanted to put a hand on his shoulder or say something kind but he had the same stiffness to his posture as Felicity had taken on in the kitchen and suddenly it all seemed too impenetrable. These people had something I didn’t – they could turn themselves to statues when the pain became too great. They could make a steel rod of their spine while people like me bent and twisted and spiralled into nothing but sobs and tears and wishes.

I was quiet as I gathered my things from the kitchen. Didn’t say goodbye as I closed the door.

Felicity had gone running down the road towards the church. To my left, Harper and his son were sitting in the cab of the wagon, eating sandwiches and smoking. The lad waved his hand in greeting and I might have managed a nod in return.

I turned right. Back towards Gilsland. Back towards home.

Felicity wasn’t going to help. John neither. Chivers had his own reason for ignoring me and Fairfax’s soul was battering at the glass of the fragile world in which I had found myself. I couldn’t leave it alone. John was right in what he said. It was distracting me from Stefan. But there was more to it than that. I felt like I’d been shown the body in the blue suit for a reason. I felt, to my very bones, that the body had been put there for me.

As I walked, I made a decision. I was alone here. I had nobody whom I could lean on or ask for guidance. But the reason for that was because I came from a very different background. I was an outsider here because of my associations elsewhere. I knew people. I had friends in high places, or at the very least, a husband in Whitehall. He owed me like I owed him. And he had influence to spare. It would not be a failure, an admission of inadequacy, to use all the tools at my disposal. And my husband was most definitely a colossal tool.

I quickened my pace, lost in my thoughts.

I didn’t know it then, but I was watched all the way home. And the eyes that burned my back were as pitiless as rain.

FELICITY

Transcript 0007, recorded October 30, 2010

He were standing by the church. Had to be, didn’t he? Smoking a cigarette under the branches of the big evergreen by the gate.

‘What yer running for, Mam? Yez’ll hurt yer self.’