Death Comes First

Two

It was on their wedding night that Charlie dropped his next bombshell.

They were in their splendid garden suite at Gravetye Manor, chosen and paid for by Henry, who said it was one of the best hotels in the country, and close to Gatwick, the airport from which they would be flying off the following day for a honeymoon in the Maldives.

Joyce, exhausted after the excitement of the day and full of food and champagne, had collapsed on the four-poster bed. Charlie came and sat down next to her. He looked uneasy.

‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ he said, taking her hand in his. ‘I hope you’ll be pleased. I’m quitting university. I’m going to work for your father.’

It was the last thing Joyce had expected. She was anything but pleased, and she was damned sure Charlie would have known that.

‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’ she asked, snatching her hand from his. ‘At least you could stay on for your final year, complete your course, take your finals, and then work for Dad, if that’s what you want.’

‘No,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m done with studying politics. I’ve totally lost interest, and I no longer want to be a politician so there’s no point in my carrying on with it. I’ve had it with all that changing-the-world crap. I want to get real, earn some proper money, build a life for my wife.’

He tried the boyish grin. It didn’t work. Undeterred, he leaned towards her, lips puckered, looking for a kiss.

Joyce brushed aside his attentions, impatient with his attempts to distract her from the matter in hand.

‘For goodness’ sake, Charlie, you don’t have to be a politician,’ she told him. ‘A degree in politics could set you up for all sorts of things. You’re a clever student. You like university life — you could be a full-time academic. Or a journalist. Maybe TV. You have a good speaking voice.’

‘A journalist?’ sniffed Charlie. ‘What, and get myself locked up along with half of what still passes for Fleet Street? Do you want to get rid of me, Mrs Mildmay?’ He tried the cheeky grin again.

‘Be serious, Charlie,’ she said. ‘Apart from anything else this is the third major decision you’ve made in the last few months without consulting me or even letting me know what you had in mind.’

Charlie stopped grinning.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should have talked to you before selling the Shirley Anne. But I just knew I was acting for the best. And it’s the same with this. I’m certain it’s for the best. You father always says that where financial provisions for his family are concerned, a man has to make his own decisions.’

‘I know what my father says, Charlie,’ Joyce replied through gritted teeth. ‘I didn’t realize I’d married my bloody father.’

‘Oh, come on, Joyce,’ said Charlie. ‘Let’s not have an argument on our wedding night.’

He reached out his hand, searching for hers again. Angry as she was, she had to concede that Charlie was right. They couldn’t quarrel on their wedding night. She let him take her hand.

‘Shall we do room service?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think I could eat anything. I’m upset, and I’ve eaten and drunk too much today already.’

‘Something light,’ he coaxed, picking up the menu. ‘Look, they do plates of mixed hors d’oeuvres.’

She relented. Even forced a small smile.

‘Sounds good. But don’t think this is over. We should have our honeymoon and then discuss it when we get home. You haven’t made any decision that is irrevocable, have you?’

Charlie looked sheepish.

‘Have you, Charlie?’ Joyce repeated.

‘I’ve resigned from Exeter. I shan’t be going back. I can’t go back. It’s done.’

Joyce removed her hand from his. She felt bereft. Whatever had happened to JC?

‘Without telling me, let alone asking me?’

‘Well, I’m telling you now and...’

Joyce could see Charlie searching for words.

‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ she said. ‘C’mon, Charlie, what is it?’

He reached in his pocket and produced a key with a golden ribbon attached. She took it from his outstretched hand and studied it for a moment, puzzled.

Then he dropped the biggest bombshell of all.

‘It’s the key to a house in Tarrant Park,’ he said. ‘Your father has given it us as a wedding present. He wanted me to be the one to tell you.’

I’ll bet he did, thought Joyce. Henry Tanner knew all too well what his only daughter wanted, what she had always wanted. And that was a life of her own, away from the confines of Tarrant Park.

‘Charlie, how could you!’ She leapt up from the bed and stood looking down at him. ‘You fool, you bloody fool. Have you any idea what this will mean?’

‘Yes, that we will start our married life in a dream home, a house most young couples could never hope to afford, where we can bring up our children and build our lives together. And I will have a dream job, doing interesting and well-paid work for a man I have come to both like and respect.’

‘Really,’ snapped Joyce. ‘You sound as if you’re reciting some sort of mantra, you pompous idiot. I thought your dream was to sail around the world aboard the Shirley Anne. And I loved you for that. It became my dream too. Not this. I’ve had a lifetime of Tarrant Park. You want to “get real”? Tarrant Park isn’t real, Charlie, can’t you see that?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Seems real enough to me,’ he said.

‘And what exactly is this “interesting well-paid work” that you’re going to be doing for my father?’

‘I’ll be learning the ropes of the import-and-export trade. Your father is one of the leading brokers in the country. He’s the master when it comes to cutting through red tape. He’s done wonders for the UK economy over the years, like his father before him, and your Uncle Max. And I am going to be the newest junior partner at Tanner-Max.’

‘Master at cutting through red tape, eh? Sounds bloody dodgy to me,’ countered Joyce.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Charlie. ‘I have never met anyone more sound than your father. He would never be involved in anything he didn’t believe to be morally right, let alone “dodgy”. International commerce is rife with complicated rules and regulations. It takes someone with Henry’s experience to deal with them — legally.’

‘How come you’re suddenly qualified to join the firm?’ asked Joyce. ‘Explain that to me.’

‘Henry says my political knowledge will be a considerable help. Everything in life nowadays is politics, Henry says.’

‘Henry says, Henry says,’ growled Joyce. ‘Don’t you have a mind of your own any more, Charlie?’

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ he replied plaintively.

‘Did you?’ snapped Joyce. ‘Did you seriously think I would want to sit at home in some glorified luxury prison while you go off playing man games that you don’t even tell me about, having to put up with the same thing my mother has put up with all her married life?’

‘No, of course not. It won’t—’

Joyce cut him off. ‘If we set up home in Tarrant Park that is precisely how it will be. And you thought I’d be pleased, did you?’

Charlie shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I’ve always thought your parents had a wonderful marriage. And that’s all I want for us. Felicity has always seemed perfectly happy with her life. Isn’t that the case?’

‘Yes. She probably is happy,’ Joyce sighed. ‘But I am not my mother. I want more, can’t you see that?’

‘I will give you more, then. I promise you, Joyce, all I want is for you to be happy. Your father and I both thought this house would make you happy. What do you want me to do? Tell him we don’t want it? Throw it back at him?’

‘It wouldn’t do any bloody good,’ muttered Joyce.

‘We can make this work, Joycey. I’ll get another boat, one that doesn’t leak,’ Charlie promised. ‘We’ll sail off into the sunset and let the winds take us where they will. We’ll still find our Shangri-La. You’ll see.’

‘And did you and my father also happen to decide when we would be moving into this bloody house?’

‘Well, when we get back from our honeymoon—’

Once more Joyce interrupted him. ‘Have you forgotten that I’m still hoping to be accepted to do an MA at Exeter if my grades are good enough?’

‘You could still do it,’ said Charlie. ‘I mean, it’s just about commutable.’

‘Commutable? It’s an hour and a half’s drive from Tarrant Park to Exeter. And that’s on a good day. Besides, commuting isn’t exactly what university life is about, is it? Be honest, Charlie. You assumed that if you quit university, I would too, didn’t you?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Charlie. But he blushed deep crimson.

They continued to squabble for another hour or so, going over and over the same ground. In the end Charlie pleaded with her, ‘Please, Joyce, can’t we just put this on hold until after the honeymoon? This has been such a special day for me. Please don’t let it be spoiled.’

There had been tears in his eyes, and the last thing Joyce wanted was to see her new husband cry on their wedding night. Grudgingly she agreed to let it drop, even though for her their special day had already been irrevocably spoiled. The obligatory nuptial lovemaking was perfunctory and unimaginative. Joyce feigned orgasm, something she had never before done with Charlie, in order to be able to seek the release of sleep, then lay awake all night with her back to him.

She blamed her father, the master manipulator who knew her better than Charlie ever would, for the way she’d been set up. If she’d had the slightest inkling of Charlie’s intention to join the family firm and start their marriage in Tarrant Park, one thing was certain: she would never have gone through with the wedding. As she set off on her honeymoon the following morning, she was still wondering whether to walk away from the marriage.

Her first sight of their idyllic Maldivian island, fringed with a ribbon of sand almost starling white against the turquoise sea, helped restore her spirits, and gradually, although a niggle remained at the back of her mind, the honeymoon became pretty much everything she had wished and hoped it would be. She acquiesced to Charlie’s entreaty that they put all discussion about their shared future on hold until their return home, and allowed the Maldives to work its own special magic.

Their own piece of paradise was called Nakatchafushi. Back in 1991 Maldivian islands were strictly no shoes and no news. Joyce thought Nakatcha was perfect. Stylish but breathtakingly simple. They slept in a rondavel yards from the edge of the sea and ate at candlelit tables set out on the beach.

Mornings of swimming and sunbathing were followed by afternoons of lazy lovemaking, which returned almost to their usual standard, and evenings drinking cocktails as the sun went down and dining on local curries and fish.

Only very occasionally did that abiding little niggle force its way to the front of Joyce’s mind. If she had known what Charlie and her father had planned, she almost certainly would not be on honeymoon.

On their return from the Maldives, Charlie was tactful and tentative in all matters concerning their future life together.

‘Look, why don’t we move into the house on a temporary basis?’ he suggested. ‘I’m not starting work with Henry for another couple of weeks. We have plenty of time to talk about everything. And, Joyce, I’m sorry I didn’t involve you. It was supposed to be a surprise. I honestly thought you’d be pleased.’

No you didn’t, you devious bastard, thought Joyce. But she didn’t say so.

‘Life on a leaky boat was all right for a few months, Joycey, but it couldn’t have gone on, don’t you see that? Your father calls you his princess, you’ve always been treated like a princess, you are my princess now, and I had no right to make you suffer for my crazy ideals.’

And he carried on in that vein, implying that he had sacrificed his own independence to show his love for her. How could she spurn such a gift? But the whole time Joyce had a nagging suspicion that he was spouting the lines he’d been told to deliver by her father.

She grudgingly agreed to move into the brand-new, five-bedroomed mock-Georgian house Henry had bought for them. A former show home, it had been partially furnished by the developer with state-of-the-art fixtures and fittings — none of them chosen by Joyce. It seemed to her that there was to be no aspect of her future life that bore any stamp of her personality. The thought of being sucked in, of slotting into this pre-programmed life and turning into her mother, appalled her. To Charlie’s dismay, she informed him that she still wanted to go back to Exeter at the end of the summer to continue her studies. Despite his pleas to see reason, she remained adamant — until her results came through. She had obtained an acceptable history degree, but the grades were not high enough to qualify for an MA course.

Undeterred, she enquired about teaching courses and other academic options at Exeter and elsewhere. Anywhere, in fact, as long as it wasn’t Bristol. She hid none of this from Charlie, but though unhappy he raised no objection. She suspected her father had told him not to. Henry Tanner always avoided confrontation with the women in his life.

Then, one morning, feeling nauseous, a devastating thought struck her. She had been so caught up with trying to escape that she hadn’t paid her own body much attention. In that moment she knew: she was pregnant.

They had decided not to have children for at least a year or two. At least, she thought they had. She confronted Charlie as soon as he came home from work that evening.

‘Have you been forgetting to use something in bed?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve always taken charge of the condoms. Maybe you haven’t been putting them on right or something.’

He stared at her. Then he began to grin.

‘Oh my God, Joycey, do you think you’re pregnant? That’s wonderful.’

She glowered at him. ‘Oh yes, you would think that, wouldn’t you? It would suit you down to the ground, wouldn’t it? You and Dad. Well, I’m not sure, but I might be.’

The grin widened. ‘That’s the best news ever!’

‘For you maybe. It pretty much puts an end to any plans I might have though, doesn’t it? We’d agreed not to have a child yet, or at least I thought we had. Or maybe my opinion doesn’t count for anything any more.’

‘Of course it does, sweetheart. Don’t be silly. And I know what we agreed. But mistakes do happen. And this would be the happiest of mistakes, wouldn’t it?’

‘Thing is, I’m wondering if this was a deliberate mistake on your part, Charlie.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, Joycey, honestly I wouldn’t. But if you are pregnant, well, I can’t pretend to be anything other than deliriously happy.’

Once it was confirmed that Joyce was pregnant she was left with little choice but to put all thoughts of further education out of her mind. She was bitter about it at first, but her natural maternal instincts slipped into place more swiftly than she had expected.

She’d always wanted to have children. Just not yet. And neither had she intended to bring them up in the stifling atmosphere of Tarrant Park. However, she was aware that she was becoming seduced, in spite of herself, by her family, her parents, particularly her father, her husband, and, much to her annoyance, by the house. Perhaps in her heart of hearts she had known from the beginning that’s what would happen — maybe that was why she had kicked so hard against it, and hit out at Charlie the way she had.

Her father, overjoyed at the news as was Joyce’s mother, insisted that Charlie should take Joyce back to their Maldivian honeymoon island, which they had so fallen in love with, before she was too pregnant either to fly or to enjoy the trip.

‘And before you’ve got a newborn screaming its head off,’ said her mother. ‘I only hope your baby sleeps better than you did,’ Felicity added with a chuckle. ‘You were a total nightmare, Joyce.’

Joyce smiled. And she went on the holiday. To her annoyance, she had a wonderful time. Charlie was proving the most attentive and loving of husbands. He never retaliated when she snapped at him, venting her frustration. Instead he coaxed and cajoled her, telling her how happy he was and how his one aim in life was to make her happy too. Nevertheless, Joyce couldn’t shake off the feeling she was being manipulated, that her husband and father were trying to turn her into her mother.

Charlie had protested that, much as he adored Felicity, the last thing he wished for was for Joyce to be transformed into her mother.

Joyce flounced from the room, but returning a short time afterwards she overheard a snatch of phone conversation. Charlie, in the sitting room, was obviously talking to her father.

‘It’s all very well you telling me to walk away — you don’t have to live with it, Henry.’

Then there was a pause.

‘Well, yes, you’re right. Things have improved. But it’s still not how it should be.’

Another pause.

‘OK, OK. I’ll do as you say... Of course I knew what I was getting into, but... Yes, I’m sure everything will turn out fine — I don’t have any bloody choice do I? Not any more.’

Then he said his goodbyes and ended the call. As he did so he glanced up and saw Joyce standing in the doorway.

‘Talking about me, I presume?’

‘What, dear?’ he stammered. ‘No, no. A work problem. A client who’s being a pain in the arse.’

‘You said, “You don’t have to live with it, Henry,”’ repeated Joyce coolly.

‘Oh, just a turn of phrase,’ said Charlie. ‘I wouldn’t talk about you like that, not to your father or anybody.’

‘Not much,’ muttered Joyce.

Charlie was obviously lying. But by then Joyce was eight months pregnant. She did not have the energy to pursue the matter. In any case Charlie continued to be the model husband. And she was aware that she had the kind of life most pregnant women would sell their souls for.

Mark was born exactly nine months to the day after their wedding night. It had been an easy pregnancy and his birth — at a private maternity clinic in Bristol — was a straightforward one. At the end of it, Joyce found herself with a healthy eight-pound bouncing boy in her arms. Indeed, Mark could have bounced for England. And yelled. And on top of that he hardly ever slept, or not at the right times anyway.

Joyce would have gone barking mad were it not for the unfailing support of her family.

Henry had given Charlie a month’s paternity leave, saying: ‘Well, it’s the modern thing, isn’t it?’

‘Since when was there anything modern about you, Dad?’ Joyce asked, realizing as she said it that it was the first affectionate banter between them since she’d moved into the house in Tarrant Park.

Charlie was besotted with his son, spending four nights a week in baby Mark’s room so that Joyce could get the sleep she so needed. In spite of all the help from her husband and mother, she was frequently exhausted. But it was a happy time, for all that, and so busy that she had no opportunity for introspection. Soon she was totally immersed in her baby and her family life. As her mother had been before her.

Weeks turned into months. Charlie returned to work, though Henry insisted that he shorten his working day in order to continue helping Joyce with the baby.

Eventually Mark began to settle. By the time he was five months old he was sleeping through the night, and gurgling through the days. He tuned out to be a happy and contented child. A joy to have around.

Joyce found herself in love with motherhood. She gave up all thoughts of further education and abandoned the notion of putting her degree to any practical use in the field of employment. Instead her days were spent looking after her son, or meeting up with female friends at the tennis or golf club, or joining them for the occasional lunch or shopping trip. She could do so whenever she wished because her mother was always on hand and eager to babysit.

She had a husband who loved and cherished her, an extended family who were wonderfully supportive, and a home that was the envy of her friends. Charlie, with the assistance of his father-in-law, had given her a BMW 325i estate car as a thank you for their son. Still a performance vehicle, but with plenty of room for a baby and all the resulting paraphernalia, said Charlie. Joyce had help with everything, including housework. If she didn’t feel like cooking, the family’s daily, Josie, whom she now shared with her parents, would prepare the evening meal. Sometimes Charlie cooked. And whenever she wished he would take her out for dinner.

It was true that her marriage had not turned out the way she’d expected or hoped. It lacked the passion and excitement of her early days with Charlie; JC had made way for a couple who were considerate of one another but distant. While Joyce was now preoccupied with motherhood, Charlie was embroiled, physically and mentally, in a world he made no attempt to share with her.

As the years passed, that distance grew. Charlie’s business trips, with and without her father, became so frequent that Joyce wondered if he were having an affair. When she confronted him he would deny it, and, for a while, would be more like the man she had married again. Once she even plucked up the courage to ask Henry — who saw far more of her husband and seemed to be in his confidence in a way that Joyce was not — if there was another woman in Charlie’s life. He had told her not to be a silly girl, leaving her cursing herself for having asked. Henry’s stock response to matters of an emotional nature was to ignore them. Privileged and cosseted as she was, he expected her to know better than to delve into areas of her man’s life it would be far better not to know about.

Even more disturbing than the spectre of infidelity were her husband’s mood swings. He would sink into regular periods of depression, unable to sleep, unwilling to communicate, resisting all pleas to confide in her. He had turned into a man every bit as secretive as her father.

He did at least make an effort to hide his moods from the children, and she supported him in this. He would spend longer hours at the office, and his absences from home would increase during these periods. Sometimes, after the children had gone to bed, he would retreat to the garden shed, where, during the good times, and helped by Fred, he constructed model ships. It seemed to Joyce that he could not stand being within the same four walls as her. Once, when she woke in the wee small hours to find he was still out there in the shed, she had plucked up the courage to investigate. She found him smoking a joint; it was the first time she had seen him smoke marijuana since their student days. She had been surprised but not alarmed. If anything she’d hoped that the joint might help him attain the mellowness of the old Charlie, back in the days when they had smoked weed together. Trying to rekindle that old togetherness, she’d asked him to share the spliff with her, and he had done so, but only after protesting that she might find it too strong. The first couple of puffs had made her head swim, so much so that she’d had to hang on to Charlie as they walked back across the lawn to the house.

She’d had no idea whether Charlie was regularly smoking marijuana again, or if this was a one-off. Either way, it did nothing to mellow him.

Eventually she managed to persuade him to see the family doctor, Jim Grant. Grant was a GP of the old school; his solution to depression or mental problems was to write a prescription for Valium or Prozac and hope that would sort it out.

The cocktail of prescription drugs seemed to ease Charlie’s mood swings for a while, but it wasn’t long before he fell back into the same old pattern. That was how it remained throughout the rest of their marriage.

Concerned that the drugs were making matters worse, Joyce had broached the topic with Charlie.

‘How dare you suggest such a thing?’ he’d stormed at her. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’

His anger had taken her by surprise. She’d thought he was going to hit her. Although he didn’t, she never dared mention his reliance on prescription drugs again.

Instead Joyce immersed herself in her children and in the gift-wrapped life she had never wanted. Charlie was not unkind or cruel. Or not deliberately so. As long as Joyce did not question or challenge him, he behaved reasonably most of the time. And he invariably made an effort when it came to special occasions. He saw to it that Christmas was always memorable for the children, and never forgot Joyce’s birthday or their wedding anniversary.

His love of boats and the sea remained, and he continued to sail throughout their married life, but, it seemed to Joyce, that was all that remained of the Charlie she had fallen in love with. At the time he disappeared from his latest boat — the pristine and plastic 28-foot sloop Molly May, named after their daughter — Charlie had been going through a particularly bad patch. Ironically Joyce had been glad when he’d told her he was planning a solo voyage. Time at sea calmed and restored Charlie in a way his wife could not. So she had encouraged him to go. And when she realized that he was not coming home, her genuine grief — because she did still love her troubled Charlie, in spite of everything — was intensified by her concerns over the way in which he had died.

Charlie was a capable and experienced sailor. He had set off on the fateful two-day voyage over the first weekend of November 2013, during an interlude of unseasonably good weather, saying it would be his last sail before winterizing the Molly May. It was believed that Charlie had fallen into the water whilst changing the rigging, and been swept out into the Atlantic. But Joyce found it hard to accept that he would have been foolhardy enough to sail alone without wearing a safety harness. Unless he had lost the desire to keep himself safe.

‘Do you think it’s possible Charlie might have taken his own life?’ she had asked her father.

Henry’s response had been predictable.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ he had said. ‘Charlie had everything to live for. Why on earth would he do such a thing?’

‘You must have noticed that he suffered from depression.’

‘Joyce darling, I am sure Charlie would never have left you and the kids. Besides, people who commit suicide leave notes, don’t they?’

‘That’s a myth,’ she said. ‘I looked it up online. The majority of suicide cases leave no note.’

‘Oh, darling, don’t torture yourself,’ her father responded. ‘Your husband loved you and the children to bits. Yes, he used to get a bit down sometimes, but not enough to think life wasn’t worth living. And he would never have done anything to cause you and the kids such pain.’

Henry Tanner was at his most reassuring. But Joyce was sure she saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes.

She didn’t pursue it though. Charlie’s death had to have been an accident. She reminded herself how absent-minded and accident prone he had become in the months leading up to his death. There had been a succession of incidents, some of which seemed to be at least partly his own fault, and some not. He had sprained his wrist aboard the Molly May when he slipped on spilt oil — and Charlie would normally keep the deck spotless. He’d narrowly avoided being hit by falling roof slates while walking past a Bristol building site. And then the brakes nearly failed on his car due to leaking fluid.

Joyce had to believe that Charlie’s death was down to carelessness or bad luck. The last thing she wanted was to further distress her children by suggesting he committed suicide. It had taken weeks before the younger two could bring themselves to accept that their father was dead. Fred and Molly had been oblivious to the stresses and strains that had dogged their parents’ marriage. Joyce suspected that Mark knew things were not as they should be, but he never mentioned it — which was typical of the men in her family.

Charlie kept the Molly May at Instow in North Devon. Forty-eight hours after he steered her from the Torridge Estuary out into the Atlantic she was spotted drifting off Hartland Point, driven there by the prevailing southwesterly. Appledore lifeboat was called and a rescue helicopter from Chivenor. The Molly May’s tender was still attached by a line and the yacht’s inflatable life raft remained on board. There was no sign of Charlie. An intensive helicopter search resulted in the discovery of a life jacket, bright yellow in grey waters, which was identified by its markings as having belonged to Charlie and the Molly May.

A police investigation found no reason to suspect foul play. It was explained to Joyce by a helpful representative of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency that it was not uncommon for victims of accidents at sea to slip out of their life jackets when they hit water, particularly if they’d failed to fasten the strap which should be secured between their legs — a surprisingly frequent lapse in safety procedure. The absence of a body was not uncommon, she was told. The body of a drowned man would sink, rise after three to five days, sink again, then rise once more after eighteen to thirty days. If, however, the body was hit by a passing vessel or became entangled in an underwater obstruction, or if parts of it were eaten by sea creatures, the remains might never be recovered.

Joyce spared her children the gruesome details, but she felt she had to give them a diluted version of what had befallen their father.

Charlie was dead. How he had died would probably never be known. But there would be no miraculous rescue. And in the end even Molly and Fred came to acknowledge that.

There had been no funeral, because there was no body, but the family arranged a memorial service. They were still awaiting the inquest, which they were assured would declare him dead ‘in absentia’ and allow a death certificate to be issued. In the meantime Joyce had set about trying to rebuild their lives, taking things day by day. It struck her that, with or without Charlie, that was the way her life had always been, and it was how she expected it always to remain.

Until that letter from the dead had dropped through her letterbox.

The letter which would change everything.