Plodding along
We’re almost there. I’ve updated up the five books, although The Innocence of Trust‘s cover needed a complete revamp as, when I went to republish the paperback, it didn’t fit. That’s working its way through the system as I type. I am 71,000 words into the new book and have a very clear path to finishing it. I reckon we’ll be at 80k by the time I’m done. It is, for those of you reading the chapters as I write, very raw, I reread a chapter yesterday and winced at my brain dump – because that’s what it is. It will get better, but I thought you might like to see a genuine work in progress.
The question is, what do I do when it’s finished? I have two alpha-readers ready – both millenials – whose job it is to make sure that Emily Copeland is behaving like one of their own. That, and the edits beforehand, should take me to the end of July. Should I then tout it? Or just get it proofread and out there? They’re rhetorical questions … unless you have any bright ideas?
The thing is, I know Sam Green books. I know what they look like, what they read like and what they smell like. I know when I written something in the Sam Green genre. This … this semi-romantic, semi-holiday, semi-thriller is anathema to me. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m writing the tense part at the moment and I keep wanting to write a Sam Green finale, with blood and gore and bullets and explosions – and tears and angst and, you know … but I know I can’t use the same level of detail. It just wouldn’t sit well with the rest of the story.
We’ll see.
[image error]A grown woman … picking clover from our lawn. I am clearly very poor company.
Other than that we’ve been keeping ourselves to ourselves. I speak to mum twice a day – she’s remarkably well. We keep in touch with Mary. Oh, and I did some work with a new client on Friday – a headteacher from Wiltshire. It was just and hour, remotely. That went okay, but I have no idea if it’s something he’ll want to continue.
And, I understand we’re in for a heat wave this week. Fab. Mrs Sun and everything …
The next Chapter follows on. Enjoy!
[image error]two handsome chaps … thanks for the reminder Alasdair!
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Chapter 13
Emily told Gbassy everything. Well, nearly everything. She didn’t mention that she slept with Pierre, twice. But, other than that, from bumping into Luis Segal at the lighthouse up until getting purposefully – it was purposefully, surely? – knocked off her bike by a big, white 4×4, she didn’t miss a beat.
Everything.
And she didn’t know why.
Most of her recent life was sensitive. It was personal. Her mum’s death was still raw; the hidden bank account took a swipe at those memories, bruising them further. Pierre’s very direct instruction to leave the town could not be clearer.
It’s not safe for you here.
You’re not saying. She reckoned the cut on her knee and the scrape on her arm was the least damage the thug, or thugs, in the white truck were expecting to inflict. It certainly didn’t feel like a safe place to her.
Yet, here she was. Sat by the Petit Rhone pouring her heart out to this seemingly kind and gentle man. A man who could have been anywhere from sixteen to twenty-six.
He was a very good listener. He didn’t just crouch there and stare at her. Her offered encouragement, nodded, and smiled and frowned when it was evident that would help.
‘Tell me about your mother,’ he’d asked.
So she had. And then she went on to tell him what little she knew about her dad.
By the time Emily had finished it was getting close to four in the afternoon. Her clothes had dried out completely, she was on her second coke – she had insisted on paying – and she was beginning to feel more normal and less wired. Gbassy had made that happen. He’d offered no advice or appeared to judge her in any way. He just soaked it all up, his eyes hinting at an age well beyond his bones.
Then she was done. And it felt better, almost as though she could get on her bike, head to her Airbnb, repack her things and, head home. She was halfway through this particular novel, but she was prepared to give it up. Change channels. Flip to another series – one less graphic, more melancholic.
But … there was part of her which remained very uncomfortable with abandoning where she was, as though to do so would sully her mum’s memory – prevent her from clearing her mum’s name. The question she faced was, therefore, which of the two opposing arguments – home to safety; stay and face whatever the next horror might be – would win?
‘How long have you been here?’ Emily asked. She hadn’t made a decision. Not then … not sat by the river, the single bull now back by the bank, its tail seeing the flies off its hind, and a shake of its head and a wiggle of its ears, batting away those around its eyes.
‘Not long,’ Gbassy responded.
‘What does that mean?’ She didn’t want to press, but ‘not long’ was an evasive answer.
He stood at that point and stretched his back, his hand clasped together, reaching for the sky. As he did he appeared to flinch and his t-shirt, which had risen above the tops of his jeans, exposed a flat stomach … and she was sure she spotted a nasty bruise.
‘Where did you get the bruise from?’ She wasn’t going to get an answer to her first question. So she tried another tack.
Gbassy dropped his arms quickly and pulled down his shirt.
‘I … I bumped into one of the tables.’ He was an awful liar, she could see that.
She stood now, her eyes chest height to him. He was wide-framed and athletic. She could imagine him limbering up on the start line of an international one hundred metre event.
And he’d been struck. Or fallen badly, but more probably the former.
She come across this before. Children arriving for a lesson with a mark on their face, or red raw skin or a bruise on their arms. Or carrying themselves awkwardly, nursing a hidden wound. When asked, the student would be coy and make some believable excuse, like slipping in the bath, or missing a step and hitting the bannister. What was interesting, and incredibly sad, was that abused children get very good at covering their abuse – protecting their abuser. The children’s words and actions soon reflecting those of a seasoned actor.
Most teachers know; and the more they see of it, the easier it is to spot. And it’s not solely the worse off students, although a good number of abused children come from working class families where employment is either in short supply, or below the law. Many come from moneyed families, where alcohol and drugs, and intolerance and other societal pressures, push adults to take their anger out on their children.
Teachers get an eye for it. And when they spot it, schools are very adept at sensitively bringing the abuse to the fore and, with the help of the police and local services, supporting the child and the family through the ordeal.
Emily sensed the same thing now. Gbassy had been hit by someone, or had been in a fight.
‘Who hit you?’ she asked.
He looked confused; embarrassed.
‘No one.’ His reply was too immediate. And there was a touch of fear in his voice. In that moment she felt the roles were about to be reversed. That she had become the listener, and Gbassy the storyteller.
‘I must go and prepare for this evening,’ he said a touch nervously, pointing back to the terrace.
She put a hand on his arm.
‘You can tell me.’ She was looking up at him. He had a day’s worth of stubble on his chin, but just then she thought he looked much younger than she previously imagined.
He didn’t reply. Instead his eyes darted between her and the restaurant, as though he was struggling between the conflict of telling her something and … not.
‘Was it Luis Segal?’ She hadn’t let go of his arm but she had no choice, because he snapped it away from her.
‘Of course not. Luis … Luis is my friend. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.’ His words were sharp and penetrating.
She thought he would leave then. That she had stepped over a line, and Gbassy, fearful of something and now, almost by mistake admitting he’d been beaten, was too afraid to talk any further.
But he didn’t. Instead he mouthed a few words, but didn’t say anything, as if he were preparing for a shocking admission.
‘It wasn’t Luis.’ He was calmer now. ‘It wasn’t.’
‘Who was it then?’ she pressed.
This time Gbassy stared out across the river, his face setting hard, his bottom jaw pushing out adding forcefulness to his expression.
‘I cannot tell you. I do not know much. But what I do know is dangerous. Very dangerous. For me. And for you. The policeman is right. As was Luis. It is not safe for you here. You must go home. To England. The white truck is just the start …’
‘Who was driving the white truck, Gbassy?’ Emily interrupted him.
He turned, looking down at her. His face had lost its intensity. He now looked sad. He put his hands gently on her shoulders.
‘I do not know.’ He shook his head as he spoke. ‘Some of your story makes sense to me. But much of it doesn’t. There are evil men here. And the things they do are so very wrong. I think your story and my story are two ends of something which places us both in danger. I easily cannot escape, miss Emily. But you can. And you must.’
Emily was about to respond when they both noticed a man on a bicycle entering the carpark. It was the chef.
She looked. Luis Segal saw her. He wobbled on his bike and then bore away from them behind the hut. She assumed he was going to park up his bike.
She dithered momentarily.
And then she threw on her backpack, picked up her bike and got in the saddle.
‘Where are you going?’ Gbassy asked.
‘I need to think. And I need a shower.’ She was just about to set off and then stopped. ‘If I don’t see you again, you will always be in my thoughts.’
And, without waiting for an answer, she pedalled towards the car park entrance. As she did she spotted Luis Segal. He had come round the corner of the restaurant and was heading toward Gbassy. He lifted a hand which might have been a request to stop – or it could have been a wave.
It didn’t matter. She ignored it and headed out of the car park, back towards town.
Luis was talking – more like shouting – at him as he strode across the carpark.
‘What was she doing here?’
Gbassy’s mind raced.
What do I say?
‘Nothing. She had fallen off her bike just up the track and came in for a can of coke.’ No lies so far.
Luis was next to him now, all arms and consternation.
‘She shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe for her. She shouldn’t be in the town.’
Gbassy looked at the man. They were eye to eye.
Luis’s face showed real concern – anguish, almost.
The chef’s concern was incomprehensible, wasn’t it? Unless he’d been seeing the woman Emily without him knowing, in one or two fleeting moments she had somehow pierced the chef’s heart with an arrow.
Gbassy broke eye contact with Luis; the intensity was too much. He turned his head and looked over his shoulder to the solitary bull in the field. Across the water to another continent.
Emily had told him everything. That her mother was Monsieur Segal’s lover. That she had died recently in an accident and, months after her death, they had found a bank account which contained a great deal of money – and that money had been deposited from a bank in Arles. That she had seen Monsieur Segal’s friend, Pierre – Gbassy now knew his name – walking the streets last night, He had accosted Emily and told her to leave the town.
And she had told him that she’d seen a photograph, taken by a colleague of her mother’s, of Luis Segal in Guinea-Bissau, a neighbouring country to his. It was shot maybe a year ago.
The woman’s story was as fascinating as it was perplexing. And it was immediately endearing. As was she – she had been from the start. There was a warmth about her which hastened attraction.
So he could see how Luis Segal might fall for her.
Love at first sight?
Gbassy liked Luis Segal. He liked him a lot. And he had no reason not to trust him. But … other than as the chef in his father’s restaurant, he had little idea how, or if, he was involved in the people smuggling operation. After this afternoon’s chat with Emily, he now thought he had a better idea.
Like father, like son?
That hurt.
‘Did she say anything else?’ Luis pressed, with a touch of exasperation.
Other than your trip to Guinea-Bissau?
Gbassy waited for Luis’s question to dissipate.
‘What work do you do for your father?’ Gbassy was looking at Luis again now.
The chef shook his head, his face a picture of confusion.
‘What?’ He spluttered. ‘I’m the chef! What else do you think I do?’
Gbassy’s confidence was rising. He was going to leave soon. Almost certainly within the next few weeks. He didn’t need answers, but there was something inside him which pressed anyway.
‘Are you involved with the immigrants?’ He didn’t wait for an answer to that question. ‘What about the boat I came on? We lost three people to the fish. Three!’ His indignation was rising. ‘And, you know your father supplies the cowboys with women. They treat them like dirt … like slaves. And …’ It was Gbassy’s turn to splutter, his head shaking, ‘they rip the children from the women. One goes in one vehicle and the other in another.’ Gbassy was leaning slightly forward. He was remonstrating with his arms. He was angry now. There was spittle on his bottom lip. ‘Your father … he is …’
He couldn’t say it. So he didn’t. He was spent. If there had been a bridge built between him and Luis Segal, he had deconstructed it and burnt the planks. He leant back, shut his mouth tight, for fear he would say something which would further break any bonds between him and the chef.
Luis didn’t respond. Not to begin with. He was a mixture of hurt and pent up frustration. His shoulders had raised a centimetre or so and his hands had formed fists. His eyes were wide and his breathing short.
He then lifted a hand and pointed a finger at Gbassy. It tapped at thin air as he spoke.
‘You don’t know anything about me.’ The words came through gritted teeth.
And then the chef was gone, turning sharply on his heels and striding purposefully towards the restaurant, abandoning Gbassy to his own thoughts.
It was true. He didn’t know anything about Luis Segal.
Nothing.
But he knew what he knew. And he had confidence in his ability to see people for what they were.
Monsieur Marc Segal was a monster. There was no other way of describing him.
Luis Segal was enigmatic. He either gave no emotion, or you got everything. He had shown Gbassy true compassion and, because of that, he trusted him. Emily – he didn’t know her surname – might well have seen Luis in a photo in Africa. And there may well be a connection linking that picture with her mother, who was the monster’s ex-lover. The bank account, with its deposits from Arles, added further intrigue.
Gbassy felt Luis Segal was an innocent in all this. That there was some other explanation for his trip to Africa.
That’s what he felt.
But. Luis Segal had been clear: you don’t know anything about me.
It was true.
All Gbassy hoped was that his intuition held good.
Emily was sitting on the beach, as close to her Airbnb as possible. That put her seventy metres from Chez Ami to her left, and still with plenty of town to her right before it merged with the Camargue and then, as the road bore inland, presented the campsite and the fish restaurant. Her Airbnb would have been ‘safer’ – how did that word even appear in her lexicon? – but she needed to be out in the fresh air, whilst wanting to steer away from trouble. There were maybe thirty other people on the beach with her: a few after-school families, some couples, and five or six singletons either full-on soaking up the sun, or hidden under parasols reading or plugged into their smartphones.
She was doing the latter.
It had taken her an hour to clean herself up, put her clothes in the washing machine and dress her two cuts. Then, armed with a cold bottle of white wine, a bag of peanuts and a beach towel she had walked not completely fearlessly to the sand, and plumped herself in the middle of the inconsiderable crowd.
She was two beakerfuls of wine in and had eaten more roasted peanuts than she had need of the calories for. And she was still none the wiser.
There are evil men here.
I cannot escape, miss Emily. But you can. And you must.
It had been the same message from all three men: Pierre, Luis Segal and now Gbassy, the young African – who had only ‘not long’ arrived here. Whatever that meant.
And a white truck … and Luis Segal, a man who, according to Gbassy, would never hit him, but who had appeared in an article in her mum’s local Cathedral’s circular.
She took a sip of her wine and then carefully placed the beaker next to her thigh, twisting its base into the warm sand so that it remained firm against a gentle onshore wind. The wine was no longer cool, but that was fine – it was alcohol.
There were three young children between her and the sea. They were building a castle, sand decorating their young bodies, sticking to liberally applied suntan lotion in blotches, and matting their hair. It made her want to do the same … to be the same. Back on the beach under the ever watchful eye of her mum. No classes of unruly children. No responsibilities to parents and faculty heads. No house to buy. No errant bank account to worry about.
And no fear of what might happen if she stayed in Saint-Marie-de-la-Mare a moment longer.
Beyond the children the dark blue of the sea rippled at its edge and, further out, the wind appeared stronger, a yacht with its spinnaker up was pushing along. The afternoon was as fresh as clean linen and, if she had been able to keep her mind clear, it would have been the perfect time and place to boost everything which was in need of a recharge.
But she couldn’t.
Her mind wouldn’t settle. Why would it?
So, she had got out her phone and was searching for … she wasn’t sure … something to fill the gaps that existed in a plot which was full of holes.
She’d gone back to her mum’s Facebook timeline. There was nothing new there.
She tried Messenger again. It was password protected.
Emily tried her mum’s birthday.
Nope.
She tried … what next?
She tapped in her own birthday. Six numbers Date, month and year.
Bingo.
All of a sudden Emily felt both very conspicuous, as though everyone on the beach knew she’d illicitly broken into her mum’s messages; and very excited, like a CIA agent having smashed the email account of a high ranking member of the Taliban.
She recognised a good few names but opened their strings in any case. What else did she have to do? The threads were standard, middle-aged exchanges. In some ways it made her feel sad that her mum’s life, on the face of it, was so ordinary.
There were some names she didn’t recognise. She opened those with trepidation, now beginning to feel a little uncomfortable – that she was prying into her mum’s private life. Still the chat was benign stuff: coffee and cinema trips; elderly university mates keeping in touch and the odd exchange with, what looked like, the church warden. There was nothing incriminating.
She scrolled down. And checked
And scrolled down some more, opened messages, and checked again.
Wait.
And there it was. An old exchange – she checked the date – almost two years ago.
The circular avatar was a photo of the neon sign which announced the fish restaurant: Tiki Ill. The name was Marc S. She dabbed at the link to the thread.
The last entry was from the restaurant owner to her mum. It read: It’s probably better if we use a different, more formal method of communication. I have a Hotmail address … the address followed … drop me a line asap and we can continue this discussion. Marc Segal had signed off with a line of five kisses and three red hearts. Emily felt her stomach churn.
The rest of the thread was over a hundred messages long and had been pinging back and forth for over a year – and there were photos.
She scrolled down to the beginning.
It started with an innocuous message from Segal: Hi. Is that Jo Copeland – who may have visited the Camargue over 40 years ago?
It was, of course, a leading question. All Marc Segal had to do was request permission to join her mum’s page. Emily assumed she would have done some research on the request – unless she got so few requests to be friends, she accepted anyone. And then she would have accepted this handsome man with a name she might have recognised and, hey presto, the door was open. Marc Segal would have then scanned her mum’s timeline and known exactly who she was, whether or not she were married, if she were in a relationship, and so much more.
He would probably have made the connection well before she did.
Then, and this was very clear to Emily, Marc Segal had groomed her mum.
There was no question about it. Her mum was far from stupid, but she was trusting … and she lived on her own. And …
Hang on.
Emily looked up from her phone. The scene was unchanging. The yacht had made some progress and the children were digging a moat – dark, wet sand was being deposited in a pile a few feet away.
… it now all became clear. That’s why mum had got out the photos. That’s why they’d had the bottle of wine and the chat about men. Getting the album out on the kitchen table. Her mum was … slowly … introducing Emily to an old flame A flame which might have recently been relit.
It all made sense.
And it hurt. Because, at that point in her life, her mum had seemed so happy.
Emily’s eyes were damp. Frustration and sadness was a heady combination.
Through a film of forming tears, the yacht still bobbed along; and the children muddier than ever.
Bastard.
What particularly made sense was that Marc Segal was a manipulating pig.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked back down at her phone.
It took her fifteen minutes to read the thread. The early photos were innocuous: this is me – what do you look like now? This is my garden. This is the restaurant and … you must come down to stay? Just like old times.
Emily was grinding her teeth. And slowly seething.
The thread built the relationship. And then moved onto Christianity and the church. Marc was, apparently, a Catholic. He ran a charity which had links in Africa. Did her mum’s church do the same? Would they be interested in what his church was planning? It was bold and exciting. Her mum had responded with enthusiasm and, with that new information, Emily was reminded of a different thread to a woman she thought might be a church member. She didn’t remember it word for word, but her mum’s message went along the lines of: I have an opportunity for St Cuthberts. I’ll talk to you about it on Sunday.
And then the thread between Marc Segal and her mum stopped with the final message. The exchange on Messenger was over. It was now to be carried on via email.
Emily shut the App and placed her phone in her lap. The children had finished the sandcastle and were now off to her side tucking into tea which an older woman had brought with them. There was no tide to speak of in the Mediterranean, so the badly drawn Windsor Castle would survive the onslaught of the sea.
Beyond the castle there were now three boats on the water. Two were yachts in the middle distance, both cutting through the sea at a lick and, on the horizon, a tanker – the colour of which she couldn’t make out as the late afternoon sun was bleaching it orange.
She watched it for a while. It was hardly moving, but was probably making good speed, it just didn’t look it from this distance.
As she watched, her face vacant and untelling, her mind span … slowly. She still had no idea what it was that Marc Segal did, other than own a fish restaurant. But she knew what he did do was illegal. Drugs were a possibility; that fitted the set up with its origins in Africa, small pier and large carpark. And she knew that he had purposefully recruited her mother to be part of ‘his gang’., and she had been paid handsomely for it.
Drugs? She couldn’t countenance it.
That’s what was or had happened, wasn’t it?
It was really depressing.
And enraging.
She finished off her beaker of wine and poured herself another.
It was now time to hack her mum’s email account.
Emily brushed the pine needles from her knees. She then leant back against the tree trunk, checked that she could see what she needed, and settled down for a bit of a wait.
She had not been able to break into her mum’s email address yesterday evening. Nor had she managed to open her WhatsApp account. And, after finishing the bottle of wine and all of the peanuts in the bag, she was caught between feeling a bit woozy – which called for a hot shower and pile into bed – and needing something substantial to eat which was neither salted nor nut-like. Instead she did neither. She had some leftover new potatoes from an earlier market excursion and an emergency tin of beans which, along with some chocolate, biscuits, teabags, sweeteners and UHT milk, she’d stuck together in a bag before she’d left the UK, ‘just in case’.
Potatoes and beans it was, then. And no more alcohol. Ever.
She surprised herself by sleeping well and, as far as she remembered, she hadn’t been disturbed by any demonic dreams. And no headache. Which was a surprise.
It left her with a decision.
She had already stayed one day beyond her welcome and was planning to stay for longer. That, according to everyone she’d spoken to, put her in danger. Which was more than a worry.
She didn’t consider herself a brave person. Certainly in life she’d avoid physical confrontation rather than encourage it. She’d only ever got into one cat-fight and that had been with a girl named Julie Barnes. It was a stupid ten-year-old spat over – she couldn’t remember. The exchange had involved a lot of thrashing, broken nails, tears and a good deal of hair pulling. By the time the teacher had reached the playground the fraquar was running out of puff and neither girl could say that they’d won. Emily had felt deeply ashamed of herself, especially when her mum had been called in to see the headteacher. She needn’t have worried. Her mum had dismissed the incident as part of growing up, ‘as long as no one is hurt, love’.
No one was and, surprisingly, she and Julie Barnes had become good pals and had even stayed in touch once they’d left school.
But Emily didn’t do pain. She avoided it wherever she could. And since her fight with Julie Barnes, she’d steered well clear of anything that might put herself in danger: heights; walking over a log above a stream; dodgems; the university ski trip; among many others.
However, moral courage was an altogether different thing. She was genetically wired not to lie. She would cross the road to help anyone if they were in trouble. And, no matter the personal price, she always did the right thing. Integrity was a badge she wore with honour.
It was no different now. Something was up. Something plain wrong. And, yes, the gendarme, might be all over it, but her mum’s reputation was on the line. Emily was sure she had been abused by Marc Segal. Okay, not physically so. But exploited … certainly. Her mum had been coerced into something she would not, under any ordinary circumstances, be a part of. Emily knew. And she wasn’t going to leave the Camargue until she got to the bottom of it.
Exactly how she was going to unravel the mystery was the task facing her this morning.
She had the four obvious choices: the four men.
Gbassy had come up all reluctant yesterday afternoon.
Pierre wanted her out of town – forcibly if necessary, she assumed.
Luis was … well, she didn’t know. Gbassy trusted him. But she couldn’t be sure. Not with the photo taken in Guinea-Bissau.
That left the monster: Marc Segal. The man who had entrapped her mum.
He knew everything. He would know who was driving the white 4×4. He knew about the bank account. He knew what his son was doing in sub-Saharan Africa.
And he knew why it wasn’t safe for her to stay in Saint-Marie-de-la-Mare.
It was the only choice.
The horse’s mouth.
That’s why she was sitting in a wood. The same wood she’d been standing in when she’d first met the waiter.
This time she was better armed. She knew what she knew. And she knew what she didn’t know. It was her Donald Rumsfeld moment.
Gbassy had told her that Marc Segal came to the restaurant every morning for a coffee, and to check and collect the previous night’s takings. He didn’t say when, but she assumed it wouldn’t be too early. In any case, the morning was better. It was daylight – not the dark of night. He’d wouldn’t be able to use ‘entertaining the clients’ as an excuse if she had come in the evening.
It was now 9.21 am. She’d arrived just before nine. The car park was empty when she’d got here, and it was empty now. She had, however, seen the waiter. He’d been out on the terrace a few minutes ago, just in his boxers, toothbrush in hand. And then he had disappeared back into the restaurant. A minute later the restaurant’s rear blinds had been pushed back, one after the other. That was Gbassy again.
And then nothing. Just the lazy river, the black bull on the far bank, the chirping of the birds, and the buzz of insects.
She had a decent picnic in her rucksack, a flask of coffee and a bottle of water. She’d worn her blue shorts and a dark green top – hoping that might help her blend in with the undergrowth. And she’d chosen a spot which afforded decent stakeout views, with chest high bracken providing disruptive cover – more hope.
Who am I kidding?
Resolve, Emily … resolve.
She could stay here all day.
She could.
…
Nothing.
Still nothing.
She flicked an ant from her forearm and thought about helping herself to some coffee but, at the same time, was worried that she might need a wee when she should be on look out.
Nothing.
Still nothing.
Wait.
There.
A silver car. It pulled up with a small skid, fine dust lifting from the track it had taken across the carpark.
The engine was switched off and the driver’s door was opened.
It was him.
Emily’s heart jumped a beat and then banged at her rib cage like a jilted lover on their ex’s front door.
This is madness.
She closed her eyes and pictured her mum.
Then she opened them again. Marc Segal was halfway between his car and the restaurant.
She steeled herself, stood, slung her rucksack over her shoulder, said, ‘Let’s do this Emily,’ to herself, and then picked her way through the ferns.
