‘Stunning. What amazing taste they have.’

‘Is your room as beautiful?’

‘No,’ Charlotte replied truthfully. ‘It’s very comfortable, but this is . . . special. You are clearly getting the VIP treatment.’

Marina sat up on the bed again, looking flattered, and it was true – her body was different. Relaxation seemed to have changed her molecular make-up: that pushed-forward jaw and tense neck, her jerky energy, now smoothed out into languour. ‘What’s he like, my cousin?’

‘Mateo? Well I’d say he’s polite, focused, driven, passionate. Very family-oriented. Loves horses.’

‘How old?’

‘Sixty-six I believe. Fairly recently remarried though. He has a six-year-old son with his second wife.’

‘A six-year-old?’ She pulled a face. ‘And I thought my mother was old! She was thirty-seven before she had me.’ She pulled a face. ‘Six miscarriages.’

It was a blunt thing to say to a near-stranger and indicative again of the new dynamic blossoming between them. ‘My God, how awful for her.’

‘Yeah. It meant she doted on me, though. People say it’s not easy being an only child but . . . it never bothered me. She was all I needed. We were best friends.’

Her voice had thinned out and Charlotte walked over to the sofa, hearing the past tense and sensing they were moving into deeper territory. The more she could learn about Marina’s family life, the better. ‘What happened to her?’

‘You mean how did she die?’ Marina asked quickly, defensively. Her expression changed. ‘Nearly fifteen years ago, sepsis. Died from a cut on her ankle, can you believe it?’ It was a rhetorical question, Marina staring unseeing into the garden. ‘I still can’t, even after all this time . . . It was the most stupid thing ever – a bit of metal from an old door stopper was sticking out and she caught it as she went past. That was it. Then she got sick and never thought to connect it to the cut. By the time they discovered the infection, it was too late. Way too late.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Yeah.’ The hardness had come back into her voice, the familiar rigidity threading her limbs again.

‘What about your father?’ Charlotte asked.

‘What about him?’ Marina asked back, defensively. Charlotte couldn’t blame her – it was the one question she herself could never bear to be asked.

‘Are you close?’

Marina gave a scornful bark. ‘Ha! No. He remarried within the year and moved to Bilbao with the new wife – he said there was more work there, but I don’t believe that. She just wanted to get him away from us. Men, right? They just move on.’ Marina’s eyes flashed up. ‘I’ve never met her.’ Defiance coloured the words, a child’s attempts at spite.

‘Your stepmother?’

‘She’s not that; she’s not a mother to me in any sense,’ Marina said flatly.

‘You sound angry with him.’

Marina hesitated. ‘Disappointed maybe. He’s not a bad man, just weak; he doesn’t know how to be alone.’ She gave a hopeless shrug. ‘I have always said I would prefer to be happy and alone than together and lonely.’