Joe got as close to the shrubs as he could; one foot in the dirt. ‘Mandy, did Louisa say she was thinking of going away for a bit? Anything like that?’

Mandy pushed her hands into the pockets of her apron. ‘She said she was leaving. She told me when she came over on Friday night. I’m sorry, Joe. I tried to talk her out of it.’

‘She said she was leaving?’

‘That’s right.’

‘She used that word?’ Joe had a sick, scared feeling. The cicadas were loud in his ears. When had they started that noise? He could barely hear himself think. ‘Are you sure?’

‘She promised me she’d go home and talk to you.’ She was squeezing the tip of her finger with a clothes peg she’d brought out of her apron pocket. ‘I really thought I’d changed her mind.’

Joe didn’t like the words Mandy was using. He didn’t like her tone of voice; her sorry smile. As if this were a situation he might just accept. As if it were definite.

‘Where are they, Mandy?’

She dropped the clothes peg. Stared at it, lying in the grass. ‘You don’t know where they are? She didn’t leave you a note, or—?’

‘No.’ His shirt was stuck to his back. ‘No idea.’

Mandy’s eyes moved over his face. ‘You must be worried sick.’

‘She wrote one word on a piece of paper. Sorry. That’s all.’ He gave Louisa’s rose bush a kick, making the petals shake. ‘Which doesn’t help me much.’

Mandy bent and picked up the clothes peg. Her shoulders were red; he saw a pale stripe as the strap of her dress slipped down her arm. ‘They went to England,’ she said, as she stood. She put the peg in her pocket. ‘They left the country, Joe.’

Joe shook his head. The cicadas screamed. ‘They can’t have.’

‘I’m sorry. Louisa should have told you herself.’ She looked away. ‘I can’t believe she’s left me to tell you this.’

‘They can’t have gone to England.’ He felt exasperation wash through him. ‘That’s not possible, Mandy. She couldn’t just go to England.’

Mandy smiled apologetically, and he despised her for pitying him, for telling him what he didn’t want to know. ‘I saw them go in a taxi. She asked me not to tell you right away.’

He kicked the rose bush a second time, sending petals into the air. For a couple of seconds the cicadas fell quiet. He kicked it again, harder.

‘I’m sorry, Joe.’

He turned his back to her, facing his house. His empty house. Jesus, the note. The guilty, final-sounding note.

‘If there’s anything I can do, Joe.’ Mandy sounded nervous. ‘Anything at all.’

He turned around. She’d stepped back a couple of paces. ‘Why didn’t you tell me she was going to do this? I could have stopped her!’ It felt good to shout. ‘I’d have stopped her if I’d known she was thinking this way. You should have said! You should have told me!’