‘You mean … the people in the village?’

‘Yes,’ she says, and Rick’s words in the taxi come back to me, you done well to stick it out here with the gossips.

‘What do they say?’ I ask, my throat suddenly dry. Kate shrugs.

‘What do you think? I’ve heard it all, I can tell you. Pretty ugly stuff, some if it.’

‘Like what?’ I don’t want to know, but the question comes out in spite of myself.

‘Like what? Well, let me see. The least worst is probably that Dad fell back into his old ways and ran off with a junkie from Paris.’

‘That’s the nicest one? Bloody hell – what’s the worst?’

It’s a rhetorical question, I wasn’t expecting Kate to answer, but she gives a bitter little laugh.

‘Hard to say … but I’d probably go for the version where Dad’s sexually abusing me, and Luc killed him for it.’

‘What?’ I can’t find any more words, and so I just say it again, chokingly. ‘What?’

‘Yup,’ Kate says shortly. She drains the last of her coffee and puts the cup on the draining board. ‘Plus everything in between. And they wonder why I don’t go down the Salten Arms on a Saturday night, like Dad did. It’s amazing what old men will come out and ask, when they’ve drunk enough.’

‘You’re kidding me – they really asked you if that was true?’

‘That one, they didn’t ask. They stated. It’s well known, apparently.’ Her face twists. ‘Dad was fucking me, and the rest of you too, sometimes, depending who you ask.’

‘Jesus, Kate, no! Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘Tell you what? That years on people round here still use your names as a kind of salacious cautionary tale? That opinion is divided between the idea that I’m a murderer, or that my father is still at large, too ashamed to come back and face what he did to me and my friends? For some reason I didn’t fancy mentioning any of that.’

‘But – but, can’t you set them straight? Deny it?’

‘Deny what, though, that’s the problem.’ Her face is full of weary despair. ‘Dad disappeared, and I waited four weeks before reporting that to the police. That part is true, and it’s no wonder rumours started. It’s the grain of truth that makes them plausible.’

‘There is no truth in those disgusting lies,’ I say fiercely. ‘None. None that matters, anyway. Kate, please, please come back to London with me. Fatima’s right, you can’t stay here.’

‘I have to stay,’ Kate says. She stands and walks out to the jetty. The tide is low, the muddy banks of the Reach sighing and crackling as they bask in the sun. ‘Now more than ever. Because if I run now, they’ll know I’ve got something to hide.’

On my lap, Freya snatches for the empty cup, and crows with delight as I let her catch it, still warm from the dregs of the tea. But I am completely silent as I stare down at her. Because I can’t think of an argument against that.

It takes so long to get everything packed and Freya changed, and then fed again, and then changed again, that by the time I’m almost ready to go Thea is awake and stumbling along the corridor from her room on the ground floor, half dressed and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

‘Did I miss Fati?’

‘You did,’ Kate says laconically. She pushes the coffee pot towards Thea. ‘Help yourself.’

‘Thanks.’ Thea drains the dregs of the pot. She is wearing jeans and a skimpy spaghetti-string top that shows, very clearly, that she’s not wearing a bra underneath. It also shows her thinness, and her scars, white and faded, and I find myself looking away.

‘I need to get back to London today too,’ she says, oblivious to my discomfort as she runs the cup under the tap and plonks it on the draining board. ‘Can I get a lift to the station with you, Isa?’

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘But I need to leave soon. Is that OK?’

‘Yup, I’ve hardly got any luggage. I can be packed in ten minutes.’

‘I’ll call a cab,’ I say. ‘What’s Rick’s number, Kate?’

‘It’s on the dresser.’ She points to a pile of dog-eared business cards in a dusty butter dish, and I rummage through until I find one that reads ‘Rick’s Rides’ and dial the number.

Rick answers at once, and agrees to meet us at the Mill in twenty minutes, with a borrowed car seat for Freya.

‘Twenty minutes,’ I say to Thea, who is sitting at the table sipping her coffee. ‘OK?’

‘Yup,’ she nods. ‘I’m basically done. I just need to actually shove my stuff in a bag – it won’t take a minute.’

‘I’m going to walk Shadow,’ Kate says, without warning, and I look up, surprised.

‘Now?’

‘But you’ll miss us going!’ Thea says. There is a touch of indignation in her voice.

Kate shrugs.

‘I was never good with goodbyes, you know that.’ She stands, and so does Thea. I follow suit after a moment’s struggle with Freya’s weight, and we stand uncertainly, the motes of sun-dappled dust swirling around us like a kind of small tornado.

‘Come here,’ Kate says at last, and she pulls me into a hug that is so fierce that I lose my breath for a moment, and have to pull back to shift Freya to one side, where she won’t be crushed.

‘Kate, please come,’ I say, knowing it’s hopeless, but she’s already shaking her head before I’ve finished the words.

‘No, no, I can’t, please stop asking me, Isa.’

‘I can’t stand to go and leave you –’

‘So don’t,’ she says laughing, but there’s a kind of sadness in her eyes that I can’t bear to see. ‘Don’t go. Stay.’

‘I can’t stay,’ I say. And I smile, even as I feel my heart cracking a little. ‘You know I can’t. I have to get back to Owen.’

‘Oh God,’ she says as she hugs me again, pulling Thea in too, our foreheads pressed together. ‘God, I’ve loved having you all here so much. Whatever happens –’

‘What?’ Thea straightens, her face alarmed. ‘What kind of talk is that? You sound like you’re preparing –’

‘I’m not,’ Kate says. She swipes at her eyes, laughs a little in spite of herself. ‘I promise. It was just a figure of speech. But I just – I can’t believe how long it’s been. Doesn’t it feel right, when we’re all here together? Doesn’t it feel like yesterday?’

And it does.

‘We’ll be back,’ I say. I touch her cheek, where a tear is gathered in her lashes. ‘I promise. Right, Thea? We won’t leave it so long this time, I swear.’

It’s a platitude, a phrase I’ve said a thousand times at a thousand partings, and without always meaning it. This time, I mean it with all my heart, but it’s only when I see Thea hesitate that the realisation hits home – we may be back here sooner than we want, and under very different circumstances if things go awry, and I feel the smile stiffen on my face.

‘Right,’ Thea says at last.

Before we can say anything else, Shadow gives a series of short barks, and our heads turn to the shore windows to see Rick’s taxi bouncing over the stones.

‘Oh crap, he’s early,’ Thea says, and she bolts up the corridor to her room, grabbing up belongings as she goes.

‘OK,’ Kate says. ‘I’m going to take Shadow and get out of your way while you pack up.’ She clips on Shadow’s lead, opens the shore doorway, and strides out towards the little gangway over the shore. ‘Be safe, lovelies.’

It is only afterwards, when we are in Rick’s car, bouncing along the track towards the main road, and Kate and Shadow are just specks against the green of the marsh, that I realise what a sad, strange thing it was for her to say. Be safe.

Sad, because it shouldn’t be something you have to wish for – it shouldn’t be in doubt.

And strange, because out of all of us, it should have been us saying that to her.