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Thunderstorms came quickly here, but Liam didn’t move, and reluctantly she met his gaze. She saw the concern in her friend’s eyes and it made her breath stutter.
    ‘Come on, Rachel, you know you can talk to me.’
    It was true: Liam was the one person in Thailand who knew everything. He knew about why she had come here, knew why she didn’t want to go back. And he knew that Diana and Julian were not the whole reason she had come to Thailand, but they were the reason it had been so easy to do so.
    The rain spots were getting bigger, harder now. The sky was dark but she could make out black storm clouds overhead. Her T-shirt began to stick to her body as Liam pulled her under one of the palm trees that fringed the beach.
    ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘You should go home.’
    ‘Liam, they hate me. I’m the last person they’re going to want to see at the funeral.’
    ‘Maybe, but maybe now is the time to say sorry.’
    Rachel shook her head. ‘He’s dead, Liam. It’s a little bit late for that.’
    ‘It’s never too late to pay your respects.’
    ‘Well they’re going to think it’s a bit rich coming from me.’
    There was a long pause.
    ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
    She looked up into his blue eyes. For a moment they connected absolutely with hers, and the unspoken frisson that had existed between them from the night that they had met, a frisson that mostly lay dormant, showed itself once more.
    She shivered, and told herself it was the cool wind that had blown in suddenly off the sea.
    ‘You’d do that?’
    ‘I think it’s important you go, but I know it won’t be easy for you. If it were me, I’d want a bit of moral support.’
    ‘But we’d have to close the school, and we’re so busy. We can’t do it,’ she said.
    ‘Look, if there was ever a time to close the school and go back home, it’s now.’
    ‘Why? Out of guilt?’ replied Rachel too harshly. ‘My sister doesn’t want me there, my mother doesn’t want me there, and Julian would not have wanted me there either. The greatest respect I can pay him is not to go. If I do, people will immediately start talking about me and the reason I left. A funeral’s supposed to be a time to remember the good things about people, isn’t it, not to rake over old scandals.’
    ‘Rachel, do you want to rebuild your relationship with your sister?’ asked Liam simply.
    She tensed, immediately defensive. Liam knew her too well. He knew what she wanted, more than anything. But she was also convinced of her reasons to stay away from England.
    ‘You have to go back,’ he pressed.
    ‘The rain is getting heavy,’ she said, looking away from him. ‘I should really be going home.’

3
    The Peacock Suite had a beautiful view of the lake; that was the reason Diana loved it. That, and the fact that it was the quietest room at Somerfold and in the most distant wing of their Oxfordshire home. It was here she liked to sit, her chair pulled up in front of the enormous windows, alone with her thoughts, gazing at the water. But today the curtains were closed, with just enough light from two small lamps to make out what she was doing. No one could see into the room, but even so, Diana felt better doing this unobserved.
    Taking a deep breath, she tipped the contents of two Selfridges bags on to the bed. It was quite a collection: papers, notebooks, letters, receipts, photographs. She had spent the morning gathering it together from desk drawers, filing cabinets, even jacket pockets around the house, but slowly, unobtrusively. She didn’t want to raise any more eyebrows. After the police had finished with their endless questions, her mother had driven her straight to Somerfold as Diana wasn’t sure she ever wanted to see the house in Notting Hill again. Predictably, both her mother and Mrs Bills, the housekeeper, had been fussing around her, watching her every move. In fact, when Mrs Bills had found her poking around the library that morning, she had