"Your mother?" Jane repeated blankly.

"Is she really dead?"

"I expect so. Why, Alex?"

"When I was little, you said she couldn't take care of me because she was ill. That wasn't true, was it? She was a drug addict."

"Alex- What- How do you-"

"Why do you always lie to me? All my life I've carried around this rosy, consumptive image of my sainted mother handing me over to you with her blessing, and it was all a lie. She didn't give a damn what happened to me."

"Alex, that's not true. She did care. That's why she brought you to me. And for God's sake, you can't tell a five-year-old that his mother's an addict!"

"You could have told me later, when I was older."

"When you were what? Twelve? Sixteen? Twenty? How would I have decided when to shatter your life? And besides," she added more calmly, "stories have a way of generating their own reality. After a while, I almost came to believe it myself. Who's told you this, Alex?"

"No one. I dreamed it. And then I started to remember."

Jane's face went ashen. "Oh, God. I'm sorry, Alex. You used to have nightmares when you were little. I thought they'd stopped years ago."

"Did she really bring me here, to the cottage? Or was that a lie, too?"

"She did. It was the last time I saw her. I tried to find her for years after that, but she'd vanished without a trace."

"Then what about my father? Was he just another junkie, a one-night stand?"

"I honestly don't know, Alex. But there was a man… She came down here with him once, when she was pregnant with you. It was after Mum and Dad had died. She hadn't even known." Jane shook her head, as if remembering her own amazement. "But I think she was clean then, at least for a while. She looked good, and she seemed happy."

"Who was he? What was his name?"

"I don't know. He waited for her in the car. I never met him. All I can tell you is that his car was expensive, and I thought that perhaps he would take care of her."

Alex felt unable to contain the sudden and inexplicable dread that had lodged in his gut. "This man- What did he look like?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Alex drove down the lane until it came to an end. After that, he left the car and walked, finding his way blindly through the marsh. But the smell of salt drove him on, until at last he sank down into a tangled clump of grass, looking out over the dark expanse of the sea.

It couldn't be true, could it, what he had imagined? He must be raving, delirious; it was an absurd fantasy. There had to have been hundreds- thousands- of young men that age in London at that time who were blond and handsome, and who had the means to wear nice clothes and drive an expensive car.

It didn't mean the money had come from the sale of the drug that had destroyed his mother- nor did it mean that the particular young man Jane had described had been Karl Arrowood.

But what difference did it make, if it were true? Alex wondered. It was an accident of genetics, that was all. It was nothing to do with him, or who he had become.

He could find out the truth, perhaps, simply by showing Jane a photograph of Karl Arrowood. But did he really want to know?

All his certainties had been torn from him, beginning with Dawn's death, and he had begun to see that if he were to survive, he must put himself back together, piece by piece. He must decide what mattered, and what did not. Was his mother important, if it came to that? Wasn't it his life with Jane that was real, those years of her care and concern that had shaped him?

He loved this place, that he knew. He loved Jane. He loved Fern, he realized, who had been such a staunch friend.

And he loved the porcelain that had spoken to him since he was a child. He thought of the blue-and-white delft bowl, now tucked into the display cabinet in his flat, and of the lives through which it had passed. All suffering faded, given time, as did all joys, but they left their imprint upon such objects, providing comfort for those who came after.

It gradually occurred to Alex that he was cold, and terribly hungry. The wind blowing off the bay tugged at his clothes, finding every tiny gap, reminding him that his flesh was subject to its whims.

It was then he realized that such things mattered desperately to him; that he wanted food and warmth and companionship. That, surely, was a good thing; a beginning. He would deal with the nightmares and the memories of Dawn and his mother as he must, but in the meantime, life would go on. He would go on.

He brushed himself off and went home to Jane.

Angel had just sent Evan home on the afternoon that Neil and Nina Byatt were arrested by Scotland Yard. It seemed that the Yard had got wind of the fact that the Russian icons Neil was selling at auction had been carefully packed with top-grade heroin. Some of the icons had gone to private buyers as well- all in all, the price of Russian art objects had skyrocketed.

After the first shock, Angel felt a rush of relief that it hadn't been Karl- and then she began to wonder why it hadn't been Karl. Neil and Nina worked for him; the artifacts came into the country through his connections. Why didn't Karl seem worried that the police might spring on him next?

After a few days, she managed to get in to see Nina during the prison's visiting hour. As Angel came in, Evan and his grandmother were leaving. The woman smelled of stale sweat and must, and very faintly, of illness- a combination of odors that Angel would forever after associate with righteousness. "God will see you in hell for this," the woman hissed at her. Evan reached out towards her, his small face pinched with misery, but his grandmother snatched him away.

Shaken, Angel sat down at the visitor's table, but Nina looked no happier to see her than had her mother. Nor did she look well. Her face was pale and drawn, her long, lustrous hair dank and flat, as if the life had drained from it.

"You have a lot of nerve, coming here," spat Nina. "More than I gave you credit for."

"But I wanted to see you. You're my friend-"

"Friend? As long as you have anything to do with Karl Arrowood, you have no friends."

"But surely we could do something to help- I could take care of Evan-"

"Don't you touch my son! You just don't see it, do you, Angel? You really don't know what's happened?"

"Nina! What are you talking about?"

"Your bloody Karl shopped us, that's what. The police must have found out about the business. They couldn't quite pin it on him because he never actually touched the stuff- He just planned everything. But they were making his life a misery, interfering with his transactions. So he made them a deal."

"A deal?" whispered Angel.

"Yeah. Neil and me, red-handed. So now they leave Karl alone, and my son will be grown before I can be with him again."

"I don't- He wouldn't-" Angel protested, but faintly. Things were adding up too fast. That's why Karl hadn't been worried: He'd known already that he had no cause for concern.

"There's got to be something I can do, Nina. I want to help you."

Nina glared at her with contempt. "It's too late for that. And it's too late for you, too, Angel."