‘I . . . I had no idea, I am so sorry . . . Mother suggested it and booked it and . . .’ He sounded sincere, his expression one of excruciating self-consciousness.

I bet she bloody did. Merrin remembered Mrs Everit giving the woman enough of the details about her place of work when she had bumped into her in the village shop.

She nodded, believing him. Not that it made this encounter any less devastating. For either of them, it would seem.

‘How . . . how have you been?’ he asked softly.

‘How have I been?’ She stared at him, almost at a loss as to how to begin. ‘I don’t even know how to answer that. How far do you want me to go back? And surely you’re not interested in my welfare now; I mean, you weren’t interested back then when you cut me loose.’ She pulled back her shoulders, emboldened a little at having found her voice, no matter that it shook with nerves. She might have looked together, sounded it almost, but inside, nerves sloshed in her stomach.

‘Oh God!’ He looked up and exhaled, rubbing his face in the way he did and showing her the smooth underside of his wrist, which still for some reason held an unfathomable allure. ‘I’ve always wondered when I would bump into you. I knew I would. But I thought it would be in Port Charles.’

‘In that heaving metropolis? Highly unlikely.’ She released her grip on the wall and put her hands in her trouser pockets to stop them from shaking.

‘I never go back, not really. I didn’t feel comfortable being there after . . .’ He let this hang. ‘It’s like everyone was pointing a finger at me or had something to say.’

‘Really? I can’t imagine,’ she fired.

He gave a low snort of laughter. ‘It was always your place, your home, and I’ve only been back when I’ve had to.’

‘It’s changed massively; we have a casino now, a ten-screen cinema, an ice rink, department store, bowling alley, a Tesco.’ Merrin rattled out the funny to ease the atmosphere and helped hide what she really wanted to say, which was, Why? Why did you leave me like that? I loved you! I loved you!

He nodded and gave a brief laugh. ‘So I’ve heard.’

‘I was sorry to hear your dad passed away.’ Guthrie had only ever been kind to her, or at least indifferent.

‘Yep. Your gran too, Ellen?’

‘Yes, they died within twenty-four hours of each other. Strange.’

‘Yep.’

There was a beat of silence where she looked along the corridor, knowing there was no reason to linger, and yet the pull of a shared history and the awareness that this encounter might never be repeated kept her fast. What did she want from him? An apology?