With a heavy heart, Albert went to the Sparrowhawk to tell Ben. On seeing that she was missing from her usual mooring, he went to Clara Primrose’s cottage. On finding her absent, he went to the boatyard to speak to John Snell.

“Gone to find his brother,” John said. “Didn’t say where.”

“But his brother’s dead. Well, missing, but it’s the same thing.”

“Just telling you what he told me.”

Gone to find his brother. It made no sense.

Albert was weary, and Albert was sad. He had been looking forward to a few days visiting his boy, who was beginning to show signs of recovering from his own war injury. But Albert was also conscientious. As Ben had predicted, he set out to interview the lock-keepers.

The first uphill lock was only a mile out of town. Albert walked over to it after speaking to John Snell, but the keeper there had not seen the Sparrowhawk. It was too late to go downhill all the way to Emlyn today. He decided to borrow a police car in the morning, and drive out to it first thing.

Far away in London, Clara lay in bed in her friend Kitty’s spare room, hugging her pillow close as if it could somehow take away her grief.

Max was dead. Not missing, believed but proper, no doubt about it dead. She had received a letter from a lawyer informing her of this, and inviting her to his office for a meeting.

“He made a will,” the lawyer told her, as if this somehow made things better. “He left everything to you. His family are very unhappy about it, that’s why it’s taken so long to inform you. You understand.”

No, Clara wanted to say, she didn’t understand. Her own parents had thrown her out of their home because of Max. His mother did not answer her letters. Clara didn’t see why she should be understanding at all, but she didn’t want to seem rude.

“I can’t imagine he had anything much to leave,” she said instead. “He wasn’t rich.”

“Ah,” said the lawyer.

And he told her that Max’s collection of love and war poems, the one which was named after her, had become a bestseller, and that all the royalties were to go to her.

“I mean, it’s not millions,” the lawyer said, as he handed her a check. “Poetry is poetry, after all. But it is something.”

Clara had cried for two days, and now there were no tears left, only an awful emptiness and the question: what was she going to do with her life, now that the waiting was over?

Chapter Thirteen

A thunderous rapping on the cabin door jerked Lotti and Ben out of sleep. They both jumped, then froze.

“Is it Skinner?” whispered Lotti, hanging upside down from the top berth.

“It can’t be,” said Ben. “He’s still away.”

“Then who …”