His eyes creep to her face. Diana has always, always intended to break the news gently—her son’s feelings being her first consideration—but his preoccupied air makes her brutal.

“I’m going to die,” she declares. “They may be able to stave it off for a few years, but they can’t cure me.”

“Stella’s body,” he says. “She . . . It . . . She’s been found.”

Cory’s hands are shaking and his face is hanging like a tragedy mask. He holds up the newspaper so his mother can see the headline, the short accompanying article, and the photo of the little orange coastguard boat.

Cory is drinking wine at the kitchen table—lots of it—and Diana moves the bottle aside so she can lay the picture before him; the one that Stella ripped to shreds.

“Darling, I’ve mended it. Look! I know it’s not the same as it was . . .”

She is grey with exhaustion and half blind, her fingers lumpy with glue. Does he notice? Is he aware that she’s accomplished the all-but-impossible?

“Bloody hell.” Cory stares at her handiwork with a nascent smile. It’s the kindest thing he’s said in weeks.

But: “Hang on, what about the hands?”

“There weren’t any hands. I scoured the attic floor, but . . .” She tries to shrug. “There weren’t any hands.”

Diana thinks she might cry if Cory insists upon the hands. He’s about to—she can tell—but he glances at her sick face and thinks better of it.

Chapter 6

6

When evening came I loitered in the studio, eating sugared almonds from a jar and watching headlights weave through the trees to the front of the house. The almonds had been gathering dust on Diana’s dressing table, and as soon as I’d spotted them I’d realised how desperately I needed to eat. They were pink and white and slightly stale, but I was too hungry to care, and I’d been picking at them all day. I was down to my last handful now and the first guests were beginning to arrive.