“I do know that. I’m only teasing.” She smiles at him and is glad to see his profile eventually return it. “There was a letter waiting for me when I got home. It was from an acquaintance of yours, I assume. A woman called Rachel? She told me that I ought to find out about Francis, one way or another, and then move on with my life. I was rather affronted when I first read it. I mean, that from an absolute stranger! It is a bit presumptuous, isn’t it? I screwed it up and very nearly threw it in the fire. It was a rather bossy letter.”

She doesn’t know who this Rachel is, but it is obvious that she means something to Harry. Was it wrong that Edie had also felt something like jealousy as this stranger’s handwriting told her how she ought to have more respect for Harry’s finer feelings?

He laughs. “That sounds about right. Rachel is looking for her husband. She’s already been out here three times. She can’t accept that he’s dead, she’s not convinced that’s right, but every time she comes back she feels like she’s getting farther away from finding him. It’s like she’s on this endless, impossible quest.”

“You make it sound like some trial from Greek mythology.”

“I just think that she’s tired of it, really. And lonely. She’d just like to have a grave that she could put flowers on and to be able to move forwards herself.”

Something passes over Harry’s face as he talks about this woman called Rachel and her loneliness, and Edie can’t quite place what it is. Is he saying that Edie ought to see herself in this other woman’s quest for finality?

“I wondered if it might be that photograph of Francis,” Harry says.

“The one that came in the post?” His eyes move over her face. For some reason she has a sense that he’s testing her response. “What do you mean?”

“I thought receiving that photograph might have prompted you to come here.”

She feels his eyes on her, and has to look down at her feet before she can meet his gaze again. “You mean the suspicion that Francis himself might have sent it?”

“Yes.”

It both relieves and disturbs her that he has voiced that thought too. “And do you think he might? Could Francis have sent it?”

“You know it’s impossible.”

“Do I?”