“We were each other’s oldest friend, Robin. We were bound to share our secrets, even if we didn’t intend to. Call it intuition if you like, though it was far more than that. She as good as told me who you were.”

“Told you? About me? You’re crazy. How could she? She was dead within hours of our only meeting.”

Sophie chuckled. “You can drop the pretence with me. After what we’ve done, I think you should, don’t you? Louise meant to leave Keith. I know she did. I heard it from her own lips a few weeks before she died. She was going to leave him that summer. Quite possibly that very day. She was going to meet you in Kington, wasn’t she? And you were going to carry her off.” She must have seen the stupefaction in my face. But what she read it as I can’t imagine. “What went wrong? Did you argue? Did you have second thoughts? You may as well tell me. Why didn’t she leave with you?”

“Because we’d never met before. Because we were strangers.”

“Come on. She confessed to me. She talked to me about the man in her life. The one she’d met on Hergest Ridge that spring. Mid-March, wasn’t it? Just after Oscar’s exhibition in Cambridge. So she said, anyway. And perhaps you know what else she said. Is that why you said you were strangers? Did she call you that to your face?”

“Call me what?” The grotesque fallacy at the heart of Sophie’s reasoning no longer mattered as much as the need to hear it through to the end.

“‘My perfect stranger.’ Her exact words. Her description. Of you.”

A long moment of silence followed in which time and my own thoughts seemed to stand still. It wasn’t possible. It made no sense. It was pure madness to leave the idea unrefuted even for a second. Yet I did. And, for as long as that, I almost believed it myself.

“Don’t worry. Nobody else knows. Only me.”

“Sophie-”

“Don’t deny it. Don’t underestimate me to the extent of thinking you can deny it.”

“But I have to. It isn’t true.”

“She couldn’t have made it up. The coincidence would have been too great. The man she met on Hergest Ridge and fell in love with was you. She never named you, of course. I wouldn’t have expected her to. But what she did tell me was enough for me to suspect you the very first time we met. And after your interview with Seymour… I was certain.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No. Why else should you still be trying to avenge her? Why-unless you loved her?”

“I didn’t love her. I never had the chance.”

“That’s not what Louise said.”

“What did she say, then? Tell me. Precisely.”

“All right. If that’s what it’ll take to convince you. I’ve nothing to hide. Louise and I went to a health farm near Malvern for a few days in the middle of June that year. It was a place we’d often used before. Somewhere we could relax and get into shape. Sarah’s graduation ceremony was coming up and Louise wanted to look her best for it. Well, that was her story. But there was a glint in her eye I knew had nothing to do with her daughter’s academic achievements. The last night we were there, she admitted she had a lover. A man she’d met by chance on Hergest Ridge. She’d gone to Kington to return some of Oscar’s pictures after the exhibition in Cambridge. Oscar wasn’t in. So she left the pictures in his studio and drove up to Hergest Ridge for a walk. The weather was unusually warm for March. She wanted a breath of fresh air. You were there for the same reason. I suppose.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Whoever. She met him on the ridge. They fell into conversation. They left together. He took her to a hotel near Hereford. They stayed overnight. She told Keith she was staying with me. The same story she used in July. But a lie on both occasions. Instead… Well, you know what happened instead far better than I do. A one-night stand that turned into a passionate love affair. So passionate she was already determined to leave Keith when she told me about it. I’d never seen her that way before. So… overwhelmed. So… carried away. She was losing control. And control was what she’d always had in abundance. But not in those last weeks. Thanks to you.”

“Not me. Somebody else. If what you’re saying is true.”

“You know it’s true. And you know it’s not somebody else. You can’t forget her, can you? That’s why you’ve stayed in touch with her family. Why you helped Seymour stir up interest in the case. Why you came here this afternoon. Why what we did was so…” We stared at each other, her belief and mine meeting but never joining. She wasn’t lying. Louise had told her what she’d just told me. In every particular. “I’ve worked it out, Robin. I’ve lain in wait and now I’ve found you. It has to be you. There’s nobody else it can be. She was the love of your life. Wasn’t she?”

I hardly remember now how I left the flat. Everything is clear in my mind. What we did. What we said. Except at the end. I was too confused by then to concentrate, too taken aback by Sophie’s misapprehension to construct a response to it, let alone a rebuttal. She must have expected me to tell her everything. She must have hoped I’d share my secrets with her as I’d shared my desires. But her reasoning was as sound as her conclusion was false. There was nothing I could tell her. Beyond what she’d already refused to believe. And there was nothing I could tell myself. To stop the indefinable fears she’d planted in my mind growing and taking shape. Sophie was wrong. But in so many ways-too many to shake off or disregard-she was right. They’d met-as we’d met-on Hergest Ridge. By pure chance. As perfect strangers. Louise-and somebody else. Who was he? Who could he be? If not me?

“You can stay… if you like.”

“No. I must go.”

“When will we meet again?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m not… sure of anything.”

I fell asleep on the train and relived the afternoon in my dreams. Closing my eyes to forget, I only saw more clearly. Sophie and me. Every action. Every detail. Seen again, as if by an invisible observer.

It was dark when I reached Petersfield. A cool still night after the breathless day. I walked round to the factory, where I’d left my car. I was tired now, too weary to think it through any more. The answer would have to wait. At least until tomorrow.

My car was the only one left in the yard. It was on the far side, near the drying shed, an open-sided structure where the newly delivered clefts of willow were stacked and left to sweat out the last of their sap before they were moulded into blades. A security light came on as I approached, dazzling me for a moment. I shielded my eyes and went on to the car, fumbling in my pocket for the keys. As I rounded the boot and my vision adjusted to the glare, I looked up. To see a man standing a few yards ahead of me, silhouetted against the light. He stood quite still, his arms folded in front of him. He seemed to be waiting for something. Or for someone. Only when he spoke did I realize who he was.

“You’ve been a long time.”

“Paul?”

“But it doesn’t matter. I’d have stayed as long as I had to.”

“What… what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to speak to you.”

“But… we could have…”

“Worked something out? I don’t think so. Maybe before. But not now. I had some news today, you see. About Rowena.”

“Rowena?”

“She was pregnant.”

“What?”

“Two months pregnant. She’d known for some time. Her doctor seemed surprised she hadn’t told me. Well, maybe she was planning to make a special announcement. It’s the anniversary of our engagement later this week. Maybe she was leaving it until then. We’ll never know now, will we?”

“Paul, I-”

“We’ll never know because of what you and that bitch Sophie Marsden did for her between you with your poisoned words and your evil little insinuations. Didn’t you?”

“Look, I’m sorry for what happened. Sorrier than I can say. But I never-”