‘This has been a long time in the making,’ he said.

She tensed. ‘It wasn’t yours to have.’

He cupped her head in his hands and bent to kiss her, long and tenderly. But, just as she was beginning to respond, she broke away. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

She closed her eyes. ‘It’s too intimate.’

She waited until she had lowered herself on top of him before she said, ‘Tell me about Tomas.’ The beautiful skin had flushed over the cheekbones and, for a few seconds, he wondered if, despite herself, she was enjoying the encounter just a little. ‘Is he… dead?’

The dead were easy to cherish, he thought. Tomas could never be said to be unfaithful, or that he had failed to live up to expectation.

She moved a fraction and additional pleasure shot through him. ‘Petr, what happened to Eva was terrible but you do know what happened to her. But that is what makes it possible to live with.’

The sensations were overpowering. Petr closed his eyes and willed the moment to be sweet, valedictory, tender – to be a moment when the barriers dissolved. He reached up and touched her cheek. Was it possible that what he felt for Laure would ever confer the inner peace, the richness, that he craved? ‘I don’t know,’ he lied. ‘I don’t know what happened to Tomas.’

Her movements stilled. ‘Then we are in my bed under false pretences.’ Abruptly, she moved off him and sat on the edge of the bed.

In some discomfort, he cursed silently. ‘Come back.’

She stood up and reached for the robe hanging on the back of the door. ‘You knew what I was asking.’

He lay back and put his arm across his eyes, aware that he would have a ferocious ball ache for the rest of the evening. ‘Laure, if you think aborting this is a punishment, you’re wrong.’

The truth was: it came close. His passion, his history, put him at a gross disadvantage, not least because he was fighting the strongest, most durable of entities: the ghost. ‘You’re no good to anyone if you’re obsessed with a vanished man,’ he said.

‘That’s my problem.’

The spots flashing behind his closed lids made him a touch nauseated. Throwing back the sheets, he levered himself upright, and made for the bathroom, slamming the door shut. Inside, he placed his hands on the basin rim and struggled to master his anger and intense disappointment.

He wanted to kill Laure. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to make her shut up. Aghast, he looked up into the bathroom and saw the reflection of a man whom he did not recognize.