She pulled herself to a half-standing position, held on to the side and tentatively put one leg over, then the other. She was out. Her heart settled. Thank God. No broken bones.

Perhaps that was her last ever bath.

She towelled herself dry and pulled her dressing-gown from the hook behind the door. The dressing-gown was made out of beautiful soft fabric. Another thoughtful gift chosen by Lauren. Rachel’s home was filled with thoughtful gifts chosen by Lauren. For example, that chunky vanilla-scented candle in the glass jar, sitting on her bathroom cabinet.

‘Big smelly candle,’ Ed would have called it.

She missed Ed at funny times. Missed arguing with him. Missed sex. They kept having sex after Janie died. They were both surprised by this, and sickened that their bodies still responded the same way as before, but they kept doing it.

She missed them all: her mother, her father, her husband, her daughter. Each absence felt like its own vicious little wound. None of their deaths was fair. Natural causes be damned, Janie’s murderer was responsible for them all.

Don’t you dare, was the strange thought that came into Rachel’s head when she saw Ed crash to his knees in the hallway one hot February morning. She meant, Don’t you dare leave me here to deal with this pain on my own. She knew right away that he was dead. They said it was a massive stroke, but Ed and her parents had died of broken hearts. Only Rachel’s heart had stubbornly refused to do the right thing and kept on beating. It made her feel ashamed, the way her desire for sex had shamed her. She kept breathing, eating, fucking, living, while Janie rotted in the ground.

She ran the palm of her hand across the steamed-up mirror and considered her blurry reflection behind the drops of water. She thought of the way Jacob kissed her with both his fat little hands pressed to her cheeks, his big clear blue eyes staring straight into hers, and each time she’d feel amazed gratitude that her wrinkly face could inspire such adoration.

For something to do, she gently nudged at the chunky candle until it reached the edge of the cabinet, toppled and crashed to the floor in a shatter of vanilla-smelling glass.

chapter fourteen

Cecilia was having sex with her husband. Good sex. Very good sex. Extremely good sex! They were having sex again. Hooray!

‘Oh God,’ said John-Paul from above her, his eyes closed.

‘Oh God,’ said Cecilia agreeably.

It was like there hadn’t been a problem at all. They’d got into bed tonight and turned to each other as naturally as when they were first together as young lovers, back when it was inconceivable that they would ever sleep next to each other without first having sex.

‘Jesus. Christ.’ John-Paul tipped his head back in ecstasy.

Cecilia moaned to let him know she was pretty happy too.

Very. Good. Sex. Very. Good. Sex. She repeated the words in rhythm with the movement of their bodies.

What was that? She strained her ears. Was it one of the girls calling out for her? No. Nothing. Dammit to hell. She’d lost her concentration now. Lose focus for just a moment and that was the end of it. She was back at square one. Tantric sex was the solution, according to Miriam. Now she was thinking about Miriam. So that was the end of that.

‘Oh God, oh God.’ John-Paul appeared to be having no problem maintaining focus.

Gay! Gay, my foot.

The girls, who should have been sound asleep but were only just going to bed (Cecilia’s mother was disobedient when it came to schedules), had been ecstatic to see their father home earlier than anticipated. They’d climbed all over him, talking over the top of each other, telling him about The Biggest Loser, the Berlin Wall, the really stupid thing that Harriet had said at ballet the other day, how much fish Mum had made them eat and so on.

Cecilia had watched John-Paul telling Isabel to turn around so he could admire her new haircut and had noted nothing strange about the way he looked at her. He was exhausted with shadows under his eyes after the long flight (he’d been stuck in Auckland for most of the day, after managing to get an earlier flight home that went via New Zealand), but he seemed happy, pleased with himself for surprising them. He did not seem like a man who cried secret tears in the shower. And now they were having sex! Great sex! Everything was fine. There was nothing to worry about. He hadn’t even mentioned the letter. It couldn’t be that significant if he wasn’t even talking about it.

‘Far . . . out.’

John-Paul shuddered and fell against her.

‘Did you just say far out?’ said Cecilia. ‘You seventies throwback.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said John-Paul. ‘It indicated satisfaction. Speaking of which, I sense that . . .?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Cecilia. ‘It was far out, man.’ It certainly would be next time.

John-Paul laughed, rolled off her and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her neck.

‘Been a while,’ observed Cecilia neutrally.

‘I know,’ said John-Paul. ‘Why is that? That’s why I came home early. I suddenly got horny as hell.’

‘I spent all of Sister Ursula’s funeral thinking about sex,’ said Cecilia.

‘That’s the way,’ said John-Paul sleepily.

‘A truck driver whistled at me the other day. I’ve still got it, just so you know.’

‘I don’t need a bloody truck driver to tell me my wife’s still got it. You were wearing your gym shorts I bet.’

‘I was.’ She paused. ‘Someone whistled at Isabel the other day in the shops.’

‘Little fucker,’ said John-Paul, but without much heat. ‘She looks much younger with that haircut.’

‘I know. Don’t tell her.’

‘Not stupid.’ He sounded like he was nearly asleep.

Everything was fine. Cecilia felt her breathing start to slow. She closed her eyes.

‘Berlin Wall, eh?’ said John-Paul.

‘Yup.’

‘I was sick to death of the Titanic.’

‘Me too.’

Cecilia let herself start to slide into sleep. Everything back on track. Everything as it should be. So much to do tomorrow.

‘What did you do with that letter?’

Her eyes opened. She looked straight ahead in the darkness.

‘I put it back up in the attic. In one of the shoeboxes.’

It was a lie. A proper black lie sliding as easily from her lips as a white lie about satisfaction with a gift or sex. The letter was in the filing cabinet in the office just down the hallway.

‘Did you open it?’

There was something about the quality of his voice. He was wide awake but he was making his voice sound sleepy and disinterested. She could feel tension emanating from the length of his body like an electrical current.

‘No,’ she said. She made her voice sound sleepy too. ‘You asked me not to . . . so I didn’t.’

His arms around her seemed to soften.

‘Thank you. Feel embarrassed.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

His breathing slowed. She let hers slow to match his.

She’d lied because she didn’t want to lose the opportunity to read the letter, if and when she chose to read it. It was a real lie that lay between them now. Damn it. She just wanted to forget about the bloody letter.

She was so tired. She would think about it tomorrow.

It was impossible to know how long she’d been asleep when she woke up again, alone in bed. Cecilia squinted at the digital clock. She couldn’t see it without her glasses.

‘John-Paul?’ she said, pushing herself up on her elbows. There was no sound from the ensuite bathroom. Normally he slept like the dead after a long-haul flight.

There was a sound above her head.

She sat up, completely alert, her heart hammering with instant understanding. He was in the attic. He never went in the attic. She’d seen the tiny beads of sweat gathering above his lips when he suffered an attack of claustrophobia. He must want that letter very badly if he was prepared to go up there.