She frowns and I continue, ‘I will be letting the house out. Can you store everything personal and lock it up?’

‘As you wish.’ She turns on her heel and heads into the kitchen. I can rely on her but . . . I can’t quite place my finger on it. I need to escape, to run from here and I can’t explain that to anyone.

‘Joan.’ Tom puts his suitcase down and walks towards me. I wish he was coming to London with us and I wish I could talk to him, but I can’t.

‘Mr Hoskine is waiting to take me to the station.’

‘Yes.’ I straighten my shoulders.

A foot away from me he stops and says, ‘I’ll be back for the inquest.’

I swallow, dreading the thought of it. ‘Thank you.’

‘You will be fine.’

I nod. ‘Tom?’

‘Don’t.’ He takes my hand in both of his. Feeling silk on my palm, I swallow, and he pulls his hands away. I manage to stand unsupported, but it takes all the strength in me.

He picks up his bag and I walk with him out the front door with my hand tightly clasped. Our silence is punctuated only by the stormy sea below. The rain begins to sputter and I push my hair back from my face. Closing the car door, Tom rolls the window down and looks at me and says, ‘Always.’

The car pulls away and I stand there long after it has disappeared, until the beat of the rain has increased and I am soaked through. The silk bow in my hand is bone dry.

89. Lottie

89

Lottie

6 August 2018, 6.00 p.m.

The tide was disappearing and families were being replaced by anglers. At present it was about forty per cent each. The remaining numbers like herself were walking, thinking, being. Although Lottie tried not to look to the headland, she couldn’t stop. Her grandfather was pushed from it and John had fallen to his death exactly where the point jutted out furthest into the bay. Several men were perched on the rocks casting their lines. She thought of John’s parents. They were right. It was time to move forward and leave the shadow in the past. She couldn’t change it and it had shaped her. But she would forgive herself. She had seen what happens when you don’t. Poor Gran. Poor Mum.