Alex’s softly spoken voice filled her ears. ‘Hi. Is now an OK time? I just want to check you’re all right. You’ve been away more than a week.’ He gave a short, self-conscious laugh. ‘We didn’t talk about how we’re going to do this. Stay in touch, I mean.’

‘It’s nice of you to even think of it,’ she said, realising, guiltily, that she hadn’t had the same thought. She pictured him at home in the blue terraced house they’d shared, the blue Alex used to say matched her eyes, his thick brown hair that seemed to want to grow straight up, his glasses glinting. ‘How’s everything?’

‘OK. How about you?’

‘OK, thanks.’ She laughed. ‘That was a short conversation.’ Her coffee was ready so she took it over to the kitchen table.

He laughed, too, then relaxed and told her that the regeneration project he’d been working on for the past couple of years had hit a snag. Alex worked as a project manager on big building sites and snags happened. Water where it shouldn’t be or not where it should be. Digging up a plague pit. Archaeologists taking over. Although it was nice to hear his voice, the details flowed over her head.

She blew on her coffee and waited for a chance to turn the conversation. ‘And Vonnie?’ she asked, when the snag story reached its natural end.

‘Yeah, she’s good,’ he said. After a moment, he added, ‘You’ve not had time to meet someone in the ten days you’ve been gone.’

Maybe nettled by this being phrased as a statement rather than a question, she answered, ‘I’m having a meal with someone, later in the week.’

‘Oh.’ Alex halted.

Laurel tried to analyse that ‘oh’. Surprise? Discomfort? Or did he simply not know how to have this conversation?

‘An old friend or a new one?’ he asked, at length.

‘Old, though we went to different schools,’ she said, before remembering how aware he was of her history and realising what conclusion he’d leap to. The correct one.

Sure enough, Alex’s voice climbed, crisp and shocked. ‘Not the brother of the guy who …?’

‘Grady, yes,’ she acknowledged defensively. ‘He wasn’t responsible for his brother, then or now.’

Alex sounded worried. ‘But what’s it churning up inside your head, Laurel? What if it brings you back in contact with the brother? Will you cope? I know how fragile you can be.’

‘Since when?’ she demanded hotly, and almost knocked her coffee over as she jerked upright in the chair. ‘I would have thought you’d seen me go through enough to know I’m sodding strong.’

He had the grace to sound sheepish. ‘I suppose that’s what I meant. You’ve had a hard time.’