‘Do you have someone else? I have wondered. Many times.’ He had raised himself onto his elbow and pulled back to look at her, his face ghostly in the dark. Outside, the rain beat like a million drums and Esther’s pounding heart felt part of it, lost inside it. The question caused the image of Marcus to form in a technicolour she usually resisted because it defied the spirit of their deal. ‘No… at least… not really. But it’s not that, it’s because…’

‘Esther, please… just… oh, please…’ He lowered his face towards hers. ‘It’s not as if we’re strangers. We were once so close. We could be again. Please, darling.’

46

Lucas strode up the lane towards the car, humming to himself, Esther’s car keys jangling in his coat pocket. He had woken at seven, refreshed from a short but deep sleep in his unforgiving makeshift bed, with the full glare of a sunbeam on his face, cutting through the gap in the sitting-room curtains like a laser. His shoes were stained and still faintly damp, but his feet were full of bounce. The day sparkled, laundered by the cycle of snow, rain and the new full-throttle sun, blazing out of a sky of deep denim blue. The road streamed and gleamed with melting water. On the verges, snow sat in shrinking clumps. Up across the valley sides, the white fields sported vast scars of shining brown and green. The car, still askew with its rear wheels over the ditch rather than in it, looked more of a mishap than a calamity.

Lucas’s mobile pinged into life just as he reached it and he knew, instantly, that it was a message from Heidi; that he, quite literally, held his life in his hands. The path it would now take. He had to crouch down to look, shielding the screen from the sun’s glare with his trembling free hand. It was a long message. Lots of sentences and capital letters and exclamation marks. No endearments. The words danced. There was RING and STEFAN and FOUND and MIRACLE and ANSWERED PRAYER and GOD.

Lucas staggered to his feet, using a hand to support himself against the side of the car, pinpricks of light bursting in his peripheral vision. He was dizzy. Not from standing up too fast. Not from an empty stomach – Dylan’s full monty fry-up breakfast had been sensational. Not from happiness either, or even relief. Gratitude was what was gushing through him. He threw his mobile high up into the air, arching backwards, throat bared at the sky, to catch it. ‘Thank you,’ he shouted, to whichever Master of the Universe had chosen to grant him a reprieve. ‘Bloody thank you.’

The messaged had contained endearments, but only at the very end.