“Nice.”

“There was a feud between him and Barney’s dad. You know about this too?”

“Not really. Their dad died before I met Barney. And he doesn’t say much about him. Or his mother. Anyway, what family doesn’t have its feuds?”

The question reminded Harding how little he really knew about Carol. Not to mention how little she knew about him. Their affair was sustained by need and habit. Neither had ever used the dreaded L word and they were unlikely to start now. “Well,” he pressed on, “feud there was, over the usual sort of stuff. Gabriel was the younger brother. He never married. Barney’s dad-”

“Arthur,” Carol interrupted matter-of-factly. “His name was Arthur. And Barney’s mum was called Rose.”

“Right. OK. Arthur and Rose. They started out their married life in Arthur’s parents’ house, which they took over completely when the old folks died. At that point, Gabriel asked Arthur for something their dad had supposedly promised him but hadn’t actually left him in his will. Arthur didn’t believe any such promise was made. He refused to hand it over, causing a lot of bad blood. And then… it went missing. Stolen by Gabriel, according to Arthur, though Gabriel denied it. There was no proof he’d taken it. It was hardly the sort of thing Arthur could go to the police about. Result? They fell out big time. Never exchanged another word, at any rate not a civil one. Gabriel didn’t even attend Arthur’s funeral. Went on denying theft, perhaps because he didn’t regard it as theft. But he had taken something. That’s certain. Because Humphrey’s spotted it among the lots to be auctioned.”

“And what is it?”

“Barney said he’d let Humph fill me in.”

“You mean you don’t get to find out unless you go.”

“That’s one way to look at it. Humphrey wants Barney to supply the cash to make sure he can buy back whatever it is, no matter what he has to bid for it. Humphrey’s poor as a church mouse, apparently.”

“Poorer. You should see where he lives. Barney’s tried to help him, but… they’re another pair of brothers who don’t get on.” Carol rolled over and propped her chin on Harding’s shoulder. She gazed at him, her brow furrowed in thought. “Barney’s told me nothing except he needs you to go to Penzance to sort something out with Humph for him. Why the secrecy, I’d like to know. I mean, why does some old argument about a family heirloom matter so much?”

“I’m not sure it does. Barney’s happy enough to stump up the cash. He just wants me to nursemaid Humphrey during the auction and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid beforehand.”

“Such as?”

“Try to steal the thing back, I suppose.”

“Well, he’s crazy enough for that. I wish you luck.”

Harding grinned. “Thanks.”

“There’s something funny about it all, though. Why’s Barney so set on you going?”

“He said you can’t abide Humphrey.”

She nodded ruefully. “That’s true.”

“And he said he could trust me.”

“Did he?” Carol closed her eyes. “Oh shit.”

“Don’t let it get to you.” Harding raised his head and kissed her. “It’s a good thing he does, you know.”

“Yeah.” She opened her eyes again. “I know.”

“I’ll go, make sure Humphrey’s on his best behaviour, hold his hand at the auction, then leave him beaming over the spoils and jet straight back here.”

“Sounds easy.”

“No reason why it shouldn’t be.”

“Maybe not. But…” She chewed her lip as her mind dwelt on the evident mystery of her husband’s thought processes. “How did Barney react when you told him you’d been to Penzance in August ’ ninety-nine?”

“He didn’t bat an eyelid. But, then, why should he? It’s just a coincidence that I paid my first visit to the town since childhood the same summer you floated into his life. It’s not even a very big coincidence. Lots of people visited Penzance in August ’ ninety-nine to see the eclipse. And it wasn’t there he met you, anyway, was it?” As Harding knew, Carol had been running a café in the Isles of Scilly when she had first encountered Barney Tozer in the summer of 1999, with life-changing consequences. Meanwhile, Harding’s wife, Polly, had been dying slowly of cancer. Their journey to Cornwall to witness the total eclipse on 11 August that year had been her last journey of any kind before the final decline. The day after the eclipse, they had taken a helicopter trip to the island of Tresco. But Carol’s café had been on its larger neighbour, St. Mary’s. Coincidence stretched only so far.

“It’s strange, though, isn’t it?” Carol mused. “The idea that you and I could have met then, in Cornwall, rather than four years later and a thousand miles away.”

“Not quite a thousand. And nearer five years than four.”

Carol sighed heavily. “Do you have to be so literal?” She pushed back the sheet, sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Harding watched her cross the room, rubbing a muscle in her back as she went. He called to her as she reached the open doorway. “Hey.”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, frowning slightly. “What?”

“You’re beautiful, you know.”

“Oh yeah? All over? Or just in parts?”

“Do a few slow pirouettes and I’ll give you a part-by-part assessment if you like.”

“Fool,” she said, laughing lightly as she headed on towards the bathroom with a sashay of her hips.

Harding stayed where he was, staring up at the ceiling, across which the lowering sun cast a golden triangle of light. He listened to the hiss and spatter of the shower and wondered if he had been right to deceive Carol as he had. It had been as much as anything an instinctive lie. To have told the truth would have raised too many questions openly between them. Why had he not mentioned the August 1999 trip to Barney? Why had Carol so evidently not mentioned it either? And why was she so bothered by the prospect of him going to Penzance now, at her husband’s bidding?

Harding did not really know why he had held the information back. It had something to do with Carol’s reaction the first time the subject had cropped up. It had disturbed her. There was no doubt about it. The coincidence-slight as it was-had troubled her. And it still did.

It also had something to do with Polly and his eagerness to suppress the active recollection of their final few years together. He would never have returned to the scene of their last holiday of his own volition. But it was a chance to come to terms with his past, to prove he could cope with the memories the trip was bound to revive. He had moved to France to escape those memories. And he had succeeded. Now he would discover how complete his success really was.

Harding flew to England two days later. Luc drove him to Nice Airport in time for the early-morning flight, assured him coping in his absence would be “pas de problème,” then roared away in the Jardiniera truck at a speed that suggested he for one would be enjoying the interlude.

Harding had not told his parents, siblings or any of his friends back home that he was going to be in the country. Already, for reasons he could not properly analyse, there was something faintly furtive, if not secretive, about the trip.

The flight was two hours, shorn to one on the clock by the change of time zones. But a coach ride to Reading, a long wait at the station and a train journey to the far end of the West of England main line swallowed most of the rest of the day. It was five o’clock on a dull and windless Friday afternoon when the train pulled into Penzance.

Harding had already adjusted by then to the thinness of the light, the altogether greyer tone of his homeland compared with the crystalline brilliance of the Côte d’Azur. He and Polly had driven down from Worcestershire, so there were no reminders of their trip in the manner of his arrival. But his first glimpse of St. Michael’s Mount out in the bay as the railway line curved to meet the shore a couple of miles short of Penzance was the first of what he knew would be many tugs at his memory.