He hung up. I’d barely got dressed when the doorbell rang. It was Fergus, but he was different from when I’d seen him in the same spot on Saturday morning, distracted, not meeting my eye. He walked straight past me and into the living room. He sat on the sofa and I sat beside him. Without speaking, he took something from his pocket and placed it on the low table in front of us. It resembled a large narrow playing card.

“I think you should look at that,” he said.

Chapter Seventeen

It’s funny, the things you notice. Your brain can’t stop working. When I picked the card up and turned it over, my hands were shaking but, even so, I saw it was a menu with the date—September 12—scrawled across it. There was a choice between goat’s cheese and walnut salad or watercress soup for starter, followed by either sea bass with roast Jerusalem artichokes or Welsh lamb with mashed sweet potato and steamed baby vegetables. Then, for dessert, chocolate fondant or fruits of the forest. I saw all of this, even as I was reading the bold handwritten message across the top. “Darling G, you were wonderful this evening. Next time stay the night and I can show you more new tricks!” I didn’t have to read the signature to know who had written it: I had spent days looking at the handwriting on bills, receipts, business letters.

I laid the menu back on the table, face down.

“Ellie,” Fergus began.

“Wait,” I said. I stood up and went to the chest where I’d put the chart. I took it out, unfolded it and examined the grid for September 12. An hour and twelve minutes was unaccounted for. At first I thought this was an amazing coincidence but quickly I realized it wasn’t a coincidence at all, because that’s the way reality fits together. I folded the chart and put it back in the drawer, then came to sit beside Fergus again.

“Where was it?” I asked him. My voice sounded quite calm. My hands were no longer trembling.

“Inside one of his running books. I was going through them this afternoon. Jemma said I shouldn’t clutter up the house. I feel dreadful, Ellie. Was I right to show you?”

I gazed at him, although it was as if I was trying to see him through a fog. “You were quite right.”

“I’m so sorry, Ellie.”

“Thank you,” I said politely, and folded my hands in my lap. I looked at the fingers laced together and thought I would be keeping my wedding ring off my finger after all.

“You were wonderful, the way you trusted him.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“At least you know now.”

“That’s true.”

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?”