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45. SUMMER 1993

She remembers the questions from the Spanish police: Did she know him? Had she ever met him before? She’d never seen him before that day she’d said, and they’d accepted that and allowed her and Nicholas to catch their flight home the following day. The police had his bag, they knew where he’d been staying; they would inform the British authorities, they would contact the young man’s family. A tragic accident. She was free to go home. There were no more questions.

That evening she packed their suitcase and the next morning she and Nicholas took a taxi to the airport and caught their flight home. An easy flight she had told Robert when he’d come home that evening. She’d brought back a bottle of duty-free whiskey and they drank a couple of glasses before going up to bed. She remembers closing the bathroom door and looking at the bite on her neck in the mirror: patting more makeup on to cover it up and then turning off the light when she got into bed. And he had reached for her, kissing her mouth, moving down and kissing her stomach. He was so gentle. They had made love, even though she hadn’t really wanted to. But she felt she needed to, that it was a necessary act to help erase what had happened. He had stroked her body; he had missed her he said. He had been thoughtful, gentle. And she concealed for weeks, until it faded, the telltale mark on her neck. And the bruise on her thigh was already a yellowy green, easily missed. She could keep her secret, burying it in her head and gradually, over the years, succeeded in chewing on it like a piece of gristle until she could finally swallow it down without choking.

There had been moments when she’d nearly told Robert, but she thought it would have been selfish. If Jonathan hadn’t died, things would have been different. If he had swum back to shore with Nicholas in tow, then everything would have been different. It was her secret. It belonged to her. She had chosen not to share it.

Catherine’s phone buzzes on the bedside table. She grabs it quickly, not wanting to wake her mother who has just gone back to sleep after another trip to the loo. It is four AM. Her heart thumps. It is Nicholas. She gets out of bed and rushes from her mother’s room, gently closing the door behind her, trying not to wake her.

“Hello? Nick?” But she’s too slow. His call has gone to voice mail. She hopes he’ll leave a message. He does. She listens to it and it is as if she has been swept back twenty years. The same rush of adrenaline which begins in the groin, so fierce it actually hurts. A mother’s basic instinct, when her child is running too close to the edge. She feels it now as she listens to Nick’s message: no words, just choking sobs, heaving down the phone to her.

She is freezing as she dials his number, over and over, but all she hears is another Nick, telling her to leave a message. A bird is singing outside, but it’s not dawn and it sounds wrong. Like her, it’s been squeezed out of its nest too soon. She grabs her coat and bag and leaves the flat. She has no car, so runs to the local minicab company and waits. Five minutes, that’s all, for a sleepy man to pull up and drive her back to her home. A twenty-minute journey at this time of day, with no traffic. She pays him and runs to the front door and lets herself in.