It must have cost a fortune. ‘I want us to be honest, that’s all,’ she says, once again conscious of how little time they’ve actually known each other. Theirs was a whirlwind romance. If she hadn’t been strapped up in a hospital bed, she would have been swept off her feet. It had been a long time since she’d felt such a sudden, urgent attraction for someone. When he subsequently invited her to move to Cornwall, she didn’t hesitate. It seemed the right thing to do – for her and for him, his career. He talked of opening a regional office in the Truro tech cluster, becoming a part of Cornwall’s burgeoning digital landscape – ‘Kernowfornia’. It never quite happened. Instead, he became more interested in Brittany, Cornwall’s Celtic twin, apparently drawn by Brest’s own tech hub.

‘I’d just like you to tell me if… you know… you ever get worried that he might come back into your life again,’ she continues. ‘We’re meant to share these things.’

She’s being disingenuous. Ever since he mentioned his fear of doppelgängers, she’s been worrying herself sick about it, and yet she’s never discussed her anxieties with him. ‘You said you met him once, a long time ago.’ She shivers, bracing herself. ‘What exactly happened?’

‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘No secrets. It was in Thailand. On a beach. I was twenty-one. Different time, different place.’ He pauses. ‘But thank you. For caring.’ She wants to ask him more but there’s a finality to his tone, as if he’s said all he’s prepared to say. ‘Have you told Bex about what happened yesterday?’ he asks, changing the subject. ‘When you were out swimming?’

‘She’s heard the whole embarrassing story.’ Kate flinches again at the memory of being rescued so publicly. And by the lifeboat.

‘She’s a good friend,’ he says.

Her best friend; Bex’s northern nous a perfect counterweight to Kate’s southern skittishness.

‘Did she mention we bumped into each other at Paddington?’ he asks.

‘She did.’

She starts to well up. Should she tell him about Jake and the boat? She leans in towards the phone, staring at the blurred profile on the screen, wishing she were with him now. Rob is back to how she knows him: kind, interested, open. A man who sends her snowdrifts of white flowers. She can cope like this.

‘There’s something else,’ she says.

He’ll be upset when she tells him about Jake’s boat, offer to help. There’s never been any hostility between them, at least not on Rob’s side. It’s a mark of his kindness, his confidence in their relationship, what they’ve built together in five short months. And she likes to think Jake has been good about it too, in public at least, an acknowledgement that what they had was no longer enough.

‘What is it?’ he asks.