‘Cockatoos,’ she says. ‘Such beautiful birds.’ Her eyes have a dark, almost black glitter. ‘I can see them on your shoulder.’

I look down at the table. She seems harmless but direct eye contact is probably not a good idea.

‘Sorry, love,’ she says. ‘I scared you. I do it all the time. But I see signs. When that happens I have to speak.’

I risk a glance around the café. Hopefully, help is at hand if she lunges at my throat.

‘It’s a curse as well as a blessing,’ she admits. ‘Sometimes it’s wiser to ignore what I see but not this time. Your mother’s passed but she’s very happy and surrounded by cockatoos.’

Of all the birds, why is this stranger talking to me about cockatoos? For years after Sara died I imagined she was still alive. Distance made such an illusion possible. I used to visualise her in her garden with its layers of rock and bush, a flock of cockatoos on the garden fence. She could be on the beach, in the supermarket, barbecuing, relaxing in the hot tub, the swimming pool, the tennis courts… anywhere except buried in a quiet graveyard.

‘I’ve upset you.’ Her gaze is focused again, our eyes meeting. ‘I’m sorry for intruding on your psychic space.’

‘Are you a clairvoyant?’ I ask.

I once went to one with Jenny. I was seventeen and feverishly in love with Jake. She told me I’d never marry and was not destined to have a family. A month later I was pregnant. So much for psychic intuition.

‘I see myself more as an angel administrator,’ this stranger replies.

An angel believer. These I’ve also met. They talk about floating feathers and the scent of roses perfuming the air and everybody… everybody… is happy in this celestial sphere these angel visionaries claim to infiltrate.

‘I run the Not Seeing is Believing angel shop on Wharf Alley,’ she adds.

‘Wharf Alley? Where’s that?’

‘Have you heard of Container City?’

The name rings a bell. I saw a documentary about it once. ‘Is it where shipping containers have been converted into homes?’

‘Exactly.’ She folds her newspaper and pushes it into an Asda plastic bag filled with groceries. ‘Wharf Alley is similar but newer. You should come and see us. We’re quite a diverse community.’

She pulls a woolly hat low over her forehead, slips her arms into a bulky anorak. Then she’s gone, moving lightly across the café for such a heavy-set woman. She has left her business card on the table. Aurora Kent is her name. Perhaps it’s the sound of her name that enchants me. Those Northern lights… that magic… the strength of Daveth’s arms… or is it that flock of cockatoos hovering in the ether above me?

Chapter 46

Jake

The slapping noise awoke him. Once again, the bedroom shutter in Nadine’s apartment had slipped free from its clasp. After breakfast he entered the apartment and secured it. The wood was rotten and needed to be replaced. Another job to add to his ‘to do’ list. On the landing he paused, suddenly uneasy. Something was different but he was unable to pinpoint it. He was halfway down the stairs when he stopped and returned to the landing. The long handle used for pulling down the attic staircase lay on the floor. The last time he used it was Christmas Day and he had left it leaning against the wall. Christmas had been a blur of loneliness, too much nostalgia and whiskey. How could he know with certainty where he left anything?

He hooked the handle into the trapdoor and pulled down the folding stairs. The naked bulb hanging from the rafters cast an eerie glow over the crates and black plastic sacks. One of Nadine’s paintings lay on the floor. The hairs on his neck lifted when he picked it up. A study of fruit in a bowl, the canvas slashed diagonally in three places. He pulled other paintings free, each one destroyed in the same way. His skin was gritty with dust when he climbed down from the attic. He entered the bathroom and ran the cold water over his hands until his skin felt numb.

Nadine listened silently when he rang her. ‘They could have been torn by a rat or a bird with sharp talons?’ He tried to lessen the impact of what he had told her. ‘We’ve no idea what kind of wildlife is running around up there.’

‘How did she get into my apartment?’ Her voice had flattened with certainty.

‘How do you know it’s – ’

‘Did you give her my key?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then she must have taken a copy of the spare I gave you. Has she done anything else?’ They had not once referred to Karin by name. ‘Has she, Jake?’ she demanded when he hesitated.

‘Small things, moving stuff in my apartment.’ He could not bear to tell her about the family photographs. The blank circles where her head was once visible. The damage to his van. The darkening rim around the image of children and their parents. Speaking such things aloud gave them substance. ‘But I wasn’t sure until now. Your canvases…that’s the first concrete sign. I’d changed the locks on my apartment but I didn’t realise she had a copy of your key. I’m reporting her to the police.’

‘Do you honestly think they’ll believe you?’

‘Of course they’ll believe – ’

‘You opened Sea Aster up to her and now her sick DNA is all over it.’ Nadine ground out the words. ‘Burn the paintings. I’ve no room in my life for contamination.’

The following morning he found a rusting tin barrel in the garden shed and dragged it to the bottom of the garden. The paintings burned easily, combustible materials quickly igniting. Afterwards he showered, the water running black with soot. The smell of flaming oils and chemicals remained in his nostrils for hours afterwards. Did DNA linger forever, he wondered. Did it build a momentum, create its own venom; a blue aura incapable of being eradicated?

They met in a bar in the Italian Quarter. Karin was perched on a high stool when he arrived, a gin and tonic at her elbow, a pint of Budweiser already drawn for him. Instead of her signature colour she wore a short, black dress with pearls at her neck. Her lips, glossily purple, were darkly outlined.

A group of man entered behind him. Loud and ebullient, they had been to a rugby match and had obviously sipped from their hip flasks throughout the game. Conversation was impossible as they crowded around the bar. Jake lifted both glasses and carried them to a quiet alcove that had just been vacated.

‘I was surprised to hear from you,’ she said as soon as they were sitting down. ‘I thought you never wanted to speak to me again.’

‘Why are you stalking me?’ He blurted out the accusation, embarrassed at how absurd it sounded but determined not to normalise their meeting.

‘Stalking you?’ She wrinkled her nose in amusement. ‘I follow your band, Jake. I go to hear you sing. Since when has that been defined as “stalking”?’

‘Are you denying you attended Ali’s play?’

‘Of course not. Why shouldn’t I go to the West End when I’m in London?’

‘Are you denying breaking into Sea Aster and destroying Nadine’s paintings?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know exactly what I mean. You slashed her paintings with a knife.’

She splashed tonic into the gin and drank from the long, slim glass before she spoke again. ‘You told me to go, Jake. I gave you back your key. She had a separate key. How on earth could I enter her apartment, much less destroy paintings I never knew existed?’

‘I don’t believe you. Neither does Nadine. She knew it was you as soon as I told her what happened.’

‘Really.’ She drank again, crunched ice between her teeth. ‘Nadine is the person you should talk to about blades. She’s the expert. Are you that unobservant, Jake? How can you live with her for so long and not be aware that she was into self-harm? I use the past tense but it’s a nasty addiction. She obviously hasn’t outgrown it. Better a canvas than her wrists, I suppose. But blaming me for your wife’s destructive actions is inexcusable.’