Alex picked Annie up from outside That Girl. Framed against the backdrop of the unapologetically modern shop front, she looked curiously old-fashioned, but stunningly beautiful. Lara had dressed her in a simple shift dress in cream silk. Lara, herself, had been held up. She was waiting for an order to come in from Wales and had called Alex to ask if he could collect Annie from That Girl and assured them both she would be there as soon as she could get away.

Annie waved at Lara before climbing into Alex’s convertible. There was, Alex noticed, an air of confidence about her. They whizzed through London, the wind whipping Annie’s long hair in fluttering tendrils across her face. She could not help but smile. This, she thought, is what freedom feels like. Alex parked up on the pavement outside Lancaster Gate tube station and they walked through the gate and past the lawns and colourful, gaudy flower beds towards the statue. Alex was weighed down with his huge camera bags and Annie was swinging her arms by her side; they were an odd couple. Annie’s dress was light and the day was breezy, although warm. As they walked, Annie could feel the air lift the light down on her arms and legs. There was only one thing on her mind. Would he come? Was Lara right in what she had said yesterday? ‘… you’re so gorgeous, I’m sure he’ll be back.’ Annie had no idea but she did know that she wanted him to and, in that sweet longing, was happiness already. Dorian had taken so much from her but now, she knew, he had not taken everything. He had not taken her love. Not all of it. There was still a little trust left in her heart. And from a little, planted well and tended, more could grow. She wanted it to be with the priest, but if not him? At least in liking him she had hope there might be somebody, someday.

These unspoken thoughts settled across her face in an almost unworldly glow. Alex put down his camera beside a large oak tree on a quiet piece of lawn, near, but not at, the statue itself and arranged Annie on a rug at its base. The afternoon sun dappled through the leaves and sent shards of soft light down on her. She looked like the most beautiful girl in the world. Alex’s stomach contracted with excitement. Not for the girl herself, but her beauty, and for what it would help him achieve.

❊

Matthew could have worn his own trousers. They were black and perfectly functional. He could have simply removed his soutane, bundled it into a bin somewhere, and gone collarless. Nobody would have known. But, stupidly, recklessly, he now realised, in his despair at not wanting to be dressed even remotely like a priest, he had cut things too fine. You don’t mess about with time because, if you do, God might decide to have a laugh at your expense. Walking into a hipster jeans shop on Oxford Street wearing a soutane was not an option, Matthew decided. He would look less conspicuous in a large department store. So, he had gone into Dickins and Jones on Regent Street and run straight up to the menswear department.

Faced with racks and racks of clothes, he realised he was in the wrong place and was about to leave when a middle-aged assistant slithered up to him and, bowing slightly said, ‘Can I help you, Father?’ Eugene, as his badge said, was so painfully deferential that Matthew found his obligation to be priestly outweighed his urgent need to get out of there. ‘Are we looking to go mufti, Father?’

Matthew gave him an awkward smile, which Eugene took as ‘yes’ and set about measuring him from head to toe. He kept him for an age in the changing room when he came back with essentially the same outfit he was wearing – black corduroy trousers and a white shirt, albeit with an ordinary, attached collar and a ludicrously frilled cuff. Eugene then folded the soutane, wrapping it in tissue paper with great care, before finally placing it into a Dickins and Jones bag. This process took just short of an hour and cost Matthew all of the money he had on him, which put a taxi fare out of his reach and meant he had to run to Kensington Gardens.

By the time he got there he was in a terrible state. The corduroy trousers had heated up to oven levels and the white shirt was sticking to his chest with sweat. When he finally managed to locate the Peter Pan statue, it was nearly 2.45 p.m. and there was no sign of Annie. She must have gone already. There was certainly no reason for her to have waited for him. If, indeed, she even remembered who he was, which he doubted. Still, he cursed Eugene for holding him up, but mostly himself for being such a weak-willed, pathetic creature, for joining the priesthood in the first place, and then imagining he could extricate himself when he couldn’t even assert his secular status with a shop assistant.

This whole thing had been ridiculous; imagining a girl like that would be interested in him.

‘That’s lovely, sweetheart. Smashing. Now move that left arm over to the right a tad – no – too much, too much – that’s it, just there. Good girl. Lovely.’

The inane banter was coming from behind him, on the other side of a tall, ornamental hedge. Curious, Matthew walked across and as he looked behind the hedge his eyes took in a tableau that took his breath away.

Annie was sitting under a tree, surrounded by heather and bluebells. She was wearing a cream dress, like a bride. Her long auburn hair curled around her shoulder in unkempt flicks and her bare legs were arranged in a provocative curl to one side. When she saw him, her mouth opened in surprise, and she pressed her pinky finger to her pale, full lips. Matthew’s heart was in his mouth as he saw the recognition glitter across her eyes.

‘Oh yes. Loving that look – good girl – you’ve seen something over my shoulder.’

The photographer didn’t know he was there and Matthew didn’t want to disturb the view. It was as close to a Raphael painting as he had ever seen. He had never in his whole life been as bereft of sketchpad and charcoal as he was now.

Matthew gave a small wave, and Annie waved cautiously back.

‘Clever girl – you’re waving at somebody over my shoulder. Loving it. Good girl – keep your eyes off camera just like that! You’re on FIRE now. Keep that look in the eyes. Look at you, girl – you’re GLITTERING! Loving this look, lady – glowing from the inside out. Damn – hang on.’

As he was quickly and expertly loading film into his camera Alex looked up at the sky, always checking cloud cover, then saw Matthew and jumped.

‘Christ! Who the hell are you?’ he snapped.

For the first time in his life gentle Matthew had a manly desire to punch somebody. It wasn’t rational; he knew that. The photographer was a friend of Annie’s and was just doing his job. Still, it was a job that involved capturing the extraordinary beauty of this woman who Matthew, also irrationally, loved beyond all measure. Matthew felt, even if he didn’t entirely understand, that this should be his privilege, not that of this impolite little English squirt.

He gathered himself and said, ‘I’m a friend of Annie’s.’

‘Well,’ Alex said, looking him up and down then quickly snapping shut his camera and raising it to his eye again, ‘whoever you are, just stand there and keep doing what you’re doing because she’s clearly loving it and it’s working a dream.’

Alex went from being a class A rotter to an angel of mercy.

Matthew beamed and waved at Annie. Annie beamed and waved back.

Both were thinking the same thing. Matthew – the very moment this is over I am going to take that woman in my arms and kiss her and to hell with all propriety. Annie – the very moment Alex is finished, I am going to fling myself into his arms and kiss him – to hell if he’s a priest.

Neither could barely wait.

Although, in truth, Alex knew in those last few frames he already had everything he needed. Annie had given him as much beauty and mood as any editor could possibly want; he might as well keep it going as long as this soft light from the cloud cover held.

‘Alright you two,’ said Alex, ‘pull back on the smiles, Annie – keep it small and subtle like before. Let’s not lose that vibe. It’s a wrap.’

When she heard Alex say the words, the excitement she felt reached a crescendo as she saw Matthew walk over towards her. She knew it was going to happen. She had been anticipating it since she first saw him standing over at the hedge, watching her, then every moment since. Still, when Matthew leaned in and kissed her, Annie felt as if she was floating, transported, lifted to a place so glorious that she never wanted to come down. And for the rest of the day, they didn’t.

They left Kensington Gardens, hand in hand, and walked and talked their way around the London streets. Every now and again, they stopped and kissed. He would stop, lean down and kiss her, then she would stop, reach up and kiss him. He told her a bit about himself but it was all so pointless, so pedestrian that all he mentioned was that he had a sister and that his father owned a pub. He told her the most interesting thing about him, which was that he had been engaged once, and broken a girl’s heart when he joined the priesthood. He regretted it now. They settled on a bench under a tree in Hyde Park as the early evening sun was setting, and she told him her story. How her father died when she was young. Then, her mother moved them both to Mayo where she met a rich doctor and remarried. Matthew could not help thinking how his marrying a doctor’s daughter might soften the blow for his own mother when he told her he was leaving the priesthood. She was too perfect. Then, she paused.

‘I need to tell you something,’ she said.

Matthew could tell she was uncomfortable.

‘Something bad happened.’

‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’ He wouldn’t coax her.

‘I do want to tell you but I never told anybody any of this before.’

‘Not even a priest?’ he said.

‘No. I’ve been too ashamed. When I tell you, you’ll understand why.’

Matthew felt a little afraid, but he knew that no matter what this girl told him, he belonged to her. Perhaps that was the most frightening thing of all.

‘Matthew, I want you to know who I am. I want you to decide for yourself if you can be with me. But first you need to know everything.’

So she told him. Everything.

Right up to the point before she killed Dorian.

‘Then,’ she said, ‘one day, I just packed up my things and ran away.’

Matthew was enraged, disgusted, horrified that such a thing could happen. But, more than that, he was filled with admiration for her strength and tenacity.

‘So you see,’ she said, ‘I’m broken.’

‘You’re not broken,’ he told her. ‘You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever known. Beauty like yours is unbreakable.’

Annie’s face darkened.

‘He told me I was beautiful. That was why he did what he did to me.’

‘You’re beautiful on the inside too, Annie. Beauty isn’t in the body; it’s in the soul. Men like that have no soul. If he had, he couldn’t have done what he did. A man like that is not a man at all, Annie. You say he was the closest person to you for most of your teens, but he never knew you. Not like…’

It seemed too forward to say it.

‘I want you to know me,’ she said. ‘If you’ll let me.’

He held her, and kissed her until she felt tears pouring down her face in a flood of relief.

‘Something else,’ she said. ‘Something I left out.’

Could she tell him? Should she tell him? Murder. He would leave her. If he left her she would die.

‘Anything,’ he said. ‘You can tell me anything.’

She paused and her courage was snatched away on a summer breeze. ‘My real name. It’s not Annie, it’s Hanna. Hanna Black.’