Faye tried to imagine what it was like; being so fixated on every morsel that passed your lips. The notes were cryptic. “Upped weekly intake . . . Getting there”? It seemed that Clare was trying to get herself to eat more, rather than less. Was that why she was recording everything? She flipped back to the beginning of the book. Clare had begun it more than two years ago. Initially, it was all about recording food items, calories and exercise. There were only a few notes. She turned the pages slowly, scanning Clare’s tiny scribblings.

“Went to cheese and wine do with Mark. He pressed me to eat pickled gherkins. Insisted vinegar has fewer calories than wine. Joker! I managed one.”

“Feeling up to half marathon but only if I can pick up half a kilogram before month end.”

Then it jumped out at Faye.

“Lunch with Derek Mackenzie. Chicken salad with creamy dressing.”

She stared at it. “Lunch with Derek Mackenzie.” She read it again, as if she might be imagining the words. Clare’s cursive was small, but she’d kept the pencil sharp and her writing was neat. “Lunch with Derek Mackenzie.” Could Clare know another Derek Mackenzie? Perhaps. But, aside from “Mark,” Clare hadn’t noted any other names in the journal.

Faye looked at the date. Mid-March less than two years ago. Clare would’ve been away at university. Derek was at work. What was he busy with at the time? Was that when his company was sorting out the project in Port Elizabeth? When he flew to the city several times over about three months and spent a few nights there each time? The city that was about an hour’s drive away from Clare’s university? It made sense. Derek would have been able to visit Clare at the time. But why? Why would he visit their friends’ teenage daughter? Faye pictured her husband and the young woman at a restaurant. Clare, with her chicken salad and Derek, across the table, leaning forward, his large, knobbly hand covering the girl’s tiny one with its skinny fingers. She felt ill. It was an image she recognised.

Zach was to spend the weekend with a friend at the boy’s family’s holiday house at Hermanus. They’d be leaving directly from school and, as Faye ate her toast and drank her coffee that morning, the weekend stretched before her like a dark tunnel with no light in any direction. Derek usually went into the office on Saturdays to catch up on paperwork. When he returned, he’d watch sport on television. Sunday mornings were for golf with two of his colleagues.

Faye phoned her mother to invite her for Sunday lunch, but even Veronica had plans for the weekend.

“What about today, then?” said Faye, hating the desperate intonation of her voice. “Zach’s away for the weekend and I’m free.”