‘The woman says she’s not frightened anymore,’ she said. ‘She’s happy now and at peace.’

Startled, he glanced sharply at her. Her broad forehead was puckered with concentration.

‘Her name begins with C… Carol… no… do you know someone who’s passed called Carol?’

‘No, I don’t. I’m not into this psychic stuff.’

Aurora shook her head, as if a fly had flown too close to her face.

‘Not Carol… Cora. She’s handing you a beautiful white feather.’

She cupped his elbow. He was hardly aware of her grip yet he was moving back to stand before the Dawn Above the Viaduct painting. She stared at the road Nadine had painted. A squiggle leading to the jetty where he had sat one morning watching the sun rise. Aurora pointed at a lone swan swimming away from the jetty.

‘Cora wants you to know she’s not afraid of the swan anymore.’ The pace of her speech had quickened. Perhaps the wine was going to her head. Jake was unnerved by her vacant stare. How on earth did she know Cora’s name? She must have read about the accident in a newspaper or online.

Unwilling to listen any longer to such vapid nonsense he glanced across the room in the hope that Chloe would intervene and rescue him but the curator had her back to him. In a gallery full of interesting strangers he was stuck with this crazy charlatan.

‘She was blinded by the yellow light,’ Aurora said. ‘Summer was resting on the tide and the air was filled with musk.’

His stomach turned queasily, the tepid wine souring in his mouth. The floor seemed to shift under his feet. He knew the signs. Focus… focus. He stared at the blade in Nadine’s painting, small, sharp, deadly. Gradually the dizziness passed, the black spots faded. Was that how angels appeared to Aurora, quivering against the blank canvas of space. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, terrified he was going to cry in this crowded gallery.

‘Excuse me. I need to go outside.’ He was shaking uncontrollably when he reached the exit. He had to sit down somewhere before his legs gave way. He leaned against the railing until the trembling stopped. Good guesser, that’s what psychics were. They read faces like a map―islands of loss, mountains climbed, bewildered pathways― and exploited people’s emotions with this knowledge.

A tour boat passed, its windows glittering. Voices drifted from the gallery. An outburst of shrill laughter sounded unpleasantly against his ears. He returned inside and searched for Aurora in the crowd but was unable to see her. The Shard portrait and the sundered house had red dots on them already. He would buy Dawn Above the Viaduct. Chloe promised to send it to him as soon as the exhibition ended but he insisted on taking it with him.

On the tube to Heathrow he imagined the unlit road, two sets of headlights clashing. He visualised a car speeding from Sea Aster. The bend beyond the gate that always required a slowing down before taking the right hand turn onto Mallard Cove. Either car just needed to be slightly over the wrong side of the road for an accident to happen. Theory was not the same as fact. Instinct had no place in a court of law, psychic proclamations even less so.

He took out his mobile and checked back over the hundreds of texts he had received since the night of the accident. Eventually, he found the one he wanted. Berlin Rocks. Just two words sent from her mobile. A warning. She knew where he was. He had intended on deleting it but the call from Eleanor came and everything that happened before that moment became irrelevant.

The air was filled with musk. Intimate secretions from animals and plants; an alluring fragrance on his pillow. Hallucinatory throwbacks to torrid nights. Why that word? Its echo vibrated from the tracks, screamed in the whistling tunnels… musk… musk… musk.

‘You look wrecked,’ Ali said when he arrived home. ‘How was the exhibition?’

‘Four red dots on Nadine’s paintings before the night was over,’ he said. ‘This one is my favourite.’

‘It’s beautiful.’ Ali stood back to admire the painting. ‘Where will you hang it?’

‘In Nadine’s ward.’

‘The perfect place.’

‘That woman with the angel shop. Did you ever meet her?’

‘Once, when I was visiting Mum.’

‘What do you make of her?’

‘She scared me… no… that’s not true. She made me scared of myself… what I was doing. But it was too late by then.’

‘Ali, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine… fine. Why are you asking about Aurora?’

‘I’m not sure… can you remember anything more about the accident?’

‘Like what?’ She stiffened, raised her shoulders.

‘Could another car possibly have been involved?’

‘I was asleep when the car skidded.’ Her voice shook. ‘All I remember is the wall… knowing we were going to hit it. But I can’t talk about it, Dad. I just can’t.’

Sara, as if sensing her mother’s distress, began to cry. She still had the kitten cry of a very young baby but it had a lusty determination that demanded instant attention. Ali took her from the sling and pressed her to her shoulder.

The evenings were shortening. The grass needed cutting. Tomorrow he would work for a while on the attic before driving to Mount Veronica. The wall, having withstood the force of Cora’s car, still formed a solid barricade around Sea Aster. The overhanging trees had a late autumnal glow, as if the green leaves leaching into yellow and russet knew their time was limited and bloomed all the brighter because of it.

Chapter 70

Sensations. Hot. Cold. Sore. Numb. Sting. Tingles. Pressure. Wet. Dry. Shivery. Fear.

Sounds. Ping. Hiss. Bleep. Sigh. Sob. Whish. Whirr. Laugh. Whispers.

Smells. Flowers. Food. Disinfectant. Perfume…

‘The kingfisher is a beautiful bird. Deadly and aggressive. Not advisable to mess with it. I watched him slide that feather into your hair. I knew then that my suspicions were right. Star-gazing when all you saw was him.

‘My mother hated his other women. She never stopped drinking long enough to know they meant nothing to him… or maybe she was drinking because she knew she was included in that truth. I should ask her, I suppose. But we’ve never been into mother-daughter intimacies and, to be honest, I don’t care one way or the other.

‘When I read your letters I was angry with him. I believed he’d debased himself. I allowed myself to believe your fantastical lies… your mad ravings. You, my best friend. It was intolerable. I heard them fighting that night. I was used to their rows, the names she threw at him… Saumya, Annalyse, Tara, Lynnette. He walked away from her, as he always did. As I wanted to do. Fifteen… eighteen… what was the difference? I wanted to be with him, not her but what was I to make of your lies and insinuations? I followed him. Do you understand? I followed him. He was standing on top of the cliff watching the lightening. Better than fireworks, he said. Better than a shower of meteors. I told him about your letters. Do you know what he called you? A stupid child. A fantasist! Do you know what I called him? A liar. Liar! Liar! I pushed him away when he tried to hold me and ran from him. The wind, I hear it still, screaming in from the ocean, and the thunder. How was I to know he’d slip? The mud turning to sludge. The earth breaking away and he was gone. I never knew. I was running… running to Jake… your letters safe in my keep. Jake would have read them that night. Afterwards, when we were alone. But then… but then…

‘He’s read them now. All of them. He had to know your whorish secrets… what you were like that summer. Lying in that cave with him when all you were thinking about was my father. Imagining him inside you… slut. Strange, isn’t it, how your letters destroyed my father and now they’ve destroyed you?