A calm ease slides across the room. Outside a party of ducks quarrel on the bankside. After a few minutes Alex, who has been checking the tide tables, breaks the silence.

‘We’ll need to get under motor again soon.’ They’ve been waiting for the tide to start coming in. It’ll make the journey out a little trickier but there’ll be less of a risk of being swept out to sea.

It is nearly six months since the incident on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Satnam isn’t ready, yet, to step back onto the span over the gorge and may never be. But the counsellor she’s been seeing has suggested going under it might help close the circle. Besides which, it’ll be a chance to remember Jessica and scatter flowers on the water where she fell. No one they know went to her funeral, nor to Tash’s either. Both happened far away, in their home towns and their parents either didn’t think to or chose not to invite Satnam. She understands that. It would take some time to deal with the residual shame of what had happened with Mulholland but she would get there. Her guilty sense of having been the catalyst for the deaths of Jessica and Tash was more deep-seated though. That might never quite go away.

Alex stands and waits for Honor to finish her lemonade.

‘You need help, Mum?’ asks Nevis.

‘Nah, it’s OK. Alex and I have got this.’

She waits while Alex sidles by, tipping a friendly wink, and moving towards the stern hatchway. She follows on, stopping to fire up the engine. The Wise Owl, as she thinks of it now, shivers into life and starts to growl. Engine in neutral, she goes up on deck, pausing momentarily to register the change in weight distribution as Alex steps off onto the bank. They’d tied up facing against the ebb tide and now the water’s coming in again the bow will have to be turned round: a simple manoeuvre, one Honor prefers to do herself. She looks out across the soupy brown water, gauging its speed and depth, listening out for Alex to call her to catch the ropes. Her mind drifts until she’s brought to her senses by Alex, saying, ‘Anything wrong?’

Turning to face him. ‘No, no. Ducks taking off is all. This year’s crop, all grown up already. A little miracle to watch them fly.’

She turns away from the channel towards the bank as Alex swings the ropes and waits for them to get airborne so she can catch them as they fall.

Waiting for him to step back on board she gestures to the tiller. ‘You hold this a moment while I draw up the anchor?’

‘Oh sure. Listen, Honor, I didn’t like to say in front of Nevis, but I read in the local paper that Mulholland’s wife had her baby. A little boy.’