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stuck into a mystery. An … unexpected bonus.’
    ‘What do you mean? Didn’t you think I’d do it?’
    ‘No, I thought you’d deliberately avoid doing it just because I’d asked you to.’ He smiled.
    ‘I did think of that,’ she admitted. ‘I … part of the reason I came out here was for the chance to say no to you. To refuse yousomething.’ Tears blurred into her eyes and she wiped them away angrily.
    ‘You fell at the first hurdle,’ he said, softly. ‘You came out here in the first place. When I asked you to.’
    ‘I know. Not very good at this, am I?’
    ‘I don’t know. You’ve made me wait five months to see you. You made me come to Belgium to try to forget you.’
    ‘That’s a lie. You always wanted to come and work with the War Graves Commission,’ she said, struggling to find a toehold, something to grasp as she slipped further and further over the cliff edge.
    ‘Leah, I’ve missed you so much,’ Ryan whispered, his lips in her hair, words touching her skin like butterflies. In silence, Leah gave in.
    When she woke it was to the sound of more rain, flecked with hail, tapping at the window pane. The little room was dark and gloomy, the bed crowded. Ryan was turned to the wall, his back to her, deeply asleep. Without moving a muscle, Leah scanned the room, made note of each item of her clothing, cast off the night before. For a second, she tried to find a way to undo what she’d done, knowing it was utterly futile. She shut her eyes and let despair wash through her. It was like being underground, being smothered, seeing no way out. I will never be free .
    But then, scribbled across the red-black of her eyelids, came the words of the Canning woman’s letters. Everything is ruined. I was going to destroy it all … there it stays, beneath the floor; I labour under such shadows! There was something there to be discovered, some hidden story, some truth. Not just the identity of the dead soldier, but whatever it was that had caused this woman such anguish, such nightmares. And why it was that the man she wrote to never wrote back to her; and why it was that he kept only these two of her letters; and why it was that she thought he might one day have had something to prove, to mitigate, as she put it.

    Like a lifeline, something to cling to, the loose threads of the story wound their way down to her. She could just about reach them, concentrating hard, bending all her will to it. The first thing she had to do was leave. Not even wake Ryan, or speak to him, or tell him goodbye; never mind that the smell of him was in her hair and on her fingers and in her mouth, like traces of some pernicious drug that fed her as it wasted her. On soft feet she rose, dressed, picked up the copies of the letters from the floor and folded them into her bag. She did not look at the bed; she did not leave a note. As she left the room she thought she saw a gleam with the corner of her eye, a shard of light reflected from the dark form tangled up in the pillows and sheets. As if Ryan’s eyes were open as she slipped from the room.

    1911
    In the mornings, the house is cool and quiet, full of bright sunshine that glints on every speck of dust swirling in the still air, settling slowly onto the furniture. As Cat sweeps the hearths and rugs, clouds of it billow around her, resettle all around to be wiped off minutes later, back into the air, on to the floor. She is glad Hester is never up in time to see how futile trying to be rid of it is. People are made of dust. Houses are made of it. Cat brushes her fingers on her apron, again and again, not liking the thought of it clinging to her skin. She cleans the downstairs rooms and lays the table for breakfast before Hester comes down. Sometimes, she is called upstairs to help Hester dress. Then, when the vicar is back from his morning jaunt, he and Hester eat breakfast while Cat goes upstairs, gathers the dirty laundry and mending, makes the bed, cleans the bedroom and