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Chapters (41)
  1. Dedication
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-One
  23. Chapter Twenty-Two
  24. Chapter Twenty-Three
  25. Chapter Twenty-Four
  26. Chapter Twenty-Five
  27. Chapter Twenty-Six
  28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-One
  33. Chapter Thirty-Two
  34. Chapter Thirty-Three
  35. An Excerpt from House of Correction
  36. One
  37. Two
  38. About the Author
  39. Praise for Nicci French
  40. Also by Nicci French
  41. About the Publisher

Fergus got up and hugged me. “I’m so sorry about everything,” he whispered.

I shrugged.

Chapter Twenty

When I got home, I had decided what to do. It would have been easy to send emails from Milena’s account, simply replying to the messages she had received from old lovers, but that felt too risky. Even if I stayed anonymous, it would have to be sent by someone who knew Milena’s password. It might even establish a connection with Milena’s computer or her office. The safest idea seemed to be to set up a Hotmail account for myself. I had no idea how easy it was to trace emails, but I probably wasn’t dealing with computer experts here. Creating the new email address, I simply jabbed randomly at the keyboard and ended up with [email protected]. I entered my first name as J and my second name as Smith. As a password I wrote out a sequence of numbers and upper-and lower-case letters. When I was done, I sent myself an email, just to check. There was just “J Smith,” the subject line, the date and time and the address. That seemed safe enough.

I entered the first of the email addresses I had retrieved from Milena’s computer, wrote “re” beside “subject,” and then, after a few moments’ thought, typed: “Dearest Robin, I am LONGING to see you and . . .” I tried to think of a plausible name. “Petra.” No—wasn’t that a dog’s name? And a tourist destination. “Katya.” Sounded a bit exotic. I realized I was thinking of names that sounded too like “Milena.” I looked at the books on the shelf. “Richmal.” Hopeless. “Elizabeth.” Was anyone called that anymore? “Eliza.” “Lizzie.” “Beth.” “Bessie.” They all sounded ridiculous. Anyway, what did it matter. “Lizzie” would do. And then I remembered. No, it wouldn’t do. The name needed to start with a J. Jackie then. “Jackie again after all this time. Ring as soon as you arrive, love Jackie xxxxx PS I hope this is your email address and if it isn’t will whoever is reading it let me know!!!!!”

I read it over and then again. I pressed send and it was gone. I wrote the same message to the second address as well and sent it. I thought of when I was a child and sometimes I had been afraid to post a letter because when I pushed it through the slot and heard it fall, I would realize it was still there, a few inches away, but lost to me, beyond change or recall.