“Oh Freya, I’m so glad you came.” She held on to me for support as she halted and caught her breath. “I was worried you wouldn’t be able to.”

She was hunched against the cold in a big padded coat with a hood. I was still wearing Diana’s cardigan, and the wool was already saturated with dew. I was going to have a cold later on; I could feel it in my throat when I swallowed.

“I was worried . . .” she repeated. “Anyway, let’s not stop here. We can talk back at my place, once you’ve had some sleep and something to eat.”

“No, no, no.” I stepped out of her grasp, pulling the cardigan tight and shaking my head. “You’ve got it all wrong,” I said. “You’ve got him all wrong. I can’t just . . .” I laughed. “I can’t just leave.”

“You can.” She approached carefully, making her voice soft and slow, as if she were talking to a nervous dog. “You can. Nobody can force you to stay here against your will.”

“It’s not against my will—” I laughed again and shoved my hair out of my eyes. “Look, this isn’t why I came to meet you; I just want to know what happened yesterday. You came rushing downstairs to tell me something.”

Maggie weighed me up as the mist weaved around us. A foghorn boomed further down the coast, its echo drifting along the cliffs.

“Let’s sit for a minute,” she said.

The grass was soaking, so we made our way to the pond with the broken fountain and perched on the edge of the low wall.

“He won’t be able to see us from the house,” Maggie whispered, reading my mind. “Not in this light, and with the mist and everything. Hey, you look cold; take my coat.”

Maggie pushed back the hood and shrugged it off. I shook my head, but she shuffled closer and spread it like a cape over both our backs.

“You look awful, Freya.”

“Thanks.”

“No, but seriously. I’ve only known you for—what? A few weeks?”

“You don’t really know me though, do you? I don’t really know you. We’ve only had a couple of conversations.”

Maggie folded her arms.

“OK, but what I’m trying to say is that you’ve altered. Even I can see it. Your face has gone all bony—you’ve gone all bony—and your hair has lost its shine.”

She picked a tangled strand off my shoulder and ran it critically through her fingers. I scraped my hair into a fist and dropped it over the other shoulder, out of her reach.

“You always used to wear it up, in a clip.”