Hi Nick. We still OK for Wednesday morning? Probably easiest if I meet you in the Starbucks on the corner of Eastcheap. 11 a.m. It would be really helpful for me to talk to you about what happened. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you’ve got to face up to things, or they bring you down.

Alex

I click on reply and begin to type a message letting him know that Nick won’t be meeting him tomorrow, then I slowly delete it. I respond instead with ‘See you there.’

What does Nick have to face up to? I’ve never heard of Alex Wells. All I know is where he is going to be at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. And – my heart races when I think this – Nick might turn up for the appointment.

Lottie pokes her head round the door.

‘Can you come and kiss me goodnight?’ she asks. ‘It’s nearly nine o’clock.’

‘Is it?’ I say, surprised. ‘I’m sorry, darling. Have you cleaned your teeth?’

I follow her into her bedroom and read a chapter of The Amber Spyglass, although my mind is elsewhere and the words make little sense.

When I come downstairs, Tim and Cora are on the sofa in the sitting room watching the television. Cora has taken my spot and Tim is sitting where Nick normally sits, with the little table in front of him where Nick’s phone and bottle of beer should be, so I have to sit alone on the armchair. They aren’t touching. When Nick and I sit there, even though I frequently lean into the corner, my feet are always against his thigh. I yearn for that physical connection, miss it so badly it burns.

TAISIE

July 2000

IT RAINED ALL NIGHT, BATTERING DOWN ON THE ROOF directly above them, bouncing off the skylight. It was like trying to sleep in a war zone, or in the middle of a fireworks display. Taisie couldn’t get comfortable on the lumpy camp bed and resented Freya and Pansy for sleeping so soundly. She didn’t know how they managed it, but they came here in winter too, so maybe they were used to sleeping so close to the elements. Taisie kept replaying that moment from earlier, Tim carrying Rory out of the river. She wished it had been her. She imagined herself draped barely conscious in his arms, pressed against his chest, water dripping from them. He would have laid her down gently but urgently and given her the kiss of life, his warm, firm hands on her skin.

Oh. She had an idea. She lay on her back thinking as flashes of lightning sent ghostly shapes darting across the room. After a few minutes she decided to check how Izzy was coping. Her sister didn’t like storms. She dragged the musty old eiderdown round her shoulders and went downstairs.