April’s teeth chattered and it was loud enough for Olivia to notice.

‘Anyway, I’ve said more than I should, and I really, really hope Nick treats your friend better than he has everyone else he’s supposed to care about,’ Olivia said, inching towards the steps that would take her back to the hotel. ‘And next time you see him, tell him to remember he has a sister.’ Her eyes welled with tears. ‘In spite of everything, I do love my brother. He’s weak, that’s all.’

When Olivia left, April was still shivering, but she was also numb. ‘He might be weak but someone that ruthless can’t be harmless,’ she said.

‘At least now we know why he joined the group,’ Tara said, returning to the unanswered question she had posed earlier. ‘And it has nothing to do with grief.’

STATEMENT

The Widows’ Club @thewidowsclub

The accusations levelled against us are undeserved and we strenuously deny any suggestion that we did anything other than provide our members with a safe place to heal. We cannot legislate for people who enter the group under a false pretext. Nick Malford lied to us.

29

The windowless room smelled musty and one of the fluorescent tubes running along the centre of the ceiling flickered. This was some comedown for Faith, after a weekend of being cosseted by her new tenant. It had been years since she had helped with the annual stocktake, but things were changing at work and not for the better. Of the three junior members of staff who should be doing this, two were being retrained and the third had been promoted. Technically, the latter had become Faith’s supervisor, but not for much longer. Faith didn’t like being managed at the best of times.

Pulling an unwieldy cardboard box from a shelf, Faith let it drop to the floor with a clatter. The seal was broken, which meant there would be less than the five hundred plastic pipettes stated on the box and as she pulled back the lid, she found a range of discarded Post-it notes and tissues littering the contents. She wouldn’t have used the box as a bin if she’d known she would be the one sifting through the mess. Without touching a thing, she judged the box to be half full and noted the figure on the inventory list.

Faith used to enjoy her job, but she had worked at the hospital for almost twenty years and it was time to go. She liked the idea of running a business, and having a fleet of limousines at her disposal would be an added bonus. She wasn’t too keen on dealing with the drunken shenanigans of stag and hen parties, but in time she would cultivate a more sophisticated clientele.