‘But that horrible girl who invited you to her party and when you turned up you found the family was away on holiday!’ Ursula’s was the first car in the queue now and she craned forward, waiting for a gap in teeming traffic.

‘Her mum had made her invite me when she hadn’t wanted to,’ Zia pointed out reasonably, trying not to remember how humiliated and left out she’d felt. ‘Writing the wrong date on the invitation probably seemed the obvious solution. She needn’t have worried. I was leaving soon anyway.’

‘That makes it even more crappy of her.’ Ursula spun the steering wheel and whipped out into a space between the cars.

Zia’s stomach felt as if it had been left back at the junction. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’ She really didn’t want to go through the whole poor-Zia-finds-it-hard-to-make-friends thing all over again so she murmured, ‘I suppose there must be medical records and a coroner’s report for Tori.’

‘I suppose so.’ Ursula sounded struck by this idea. ‘Are you going to track them down?’

Zia considered, swaying with the movement of the car. ‘I don’t know. Would paperwork give me any more insight into Tori than the memories of Harry, Lucia and Durante? Add anything to the photos treasured by people who loved her?’ She had to swallow hard to get the next words out. ‘It’s shitty enough to realise my birth led to Tori’s death without seeing the recorded evidence.’

‘Oh, Zia.’ Ursula crooned softly. She groped for Zia’s hand and gave it a squeeze before returning to the steering wheel.

‘When I’m back in the UK in September I’ll go to Devon and throw rose petals in the water of Sandy Bay for my two mums.’ Zia closed her eyes, trying to uncurl her hands and soften her spine into the car seat. Tears leaked from beneath her closed lids and her head, full of whirring thoughts, ached.

Today had exaggerated all her feelings. Overwhelming sympathy for Tori as well as sorrow and loss. Gratitude to Lucia and Durante for keeping her safe when her psychotic young mother abandoned her. Grief that Vicky had interpreted Lucia’s search for Zia as a threat. Immeasurable thankfulness for Vicky, Joyce and Alf who’d all given up their own plans to care for young Zia.

At some point this afternoon she’d made the decision never to identify herself to Gerardo. It had come from an instinct to protect herself from disappointment rather than from structured reasoning but the decision was a relief. Couldn’t trust him. Could do without him.