2001, Central Park, New York

They walked slowly round the duck pond, kicking the first dry leaves of autumn aside. They watched a young couple rollerblading ahead of them. Maddy smiled sadly, envious of the pair of them, both about her age and seemingly without a solitary care in the world. She watched the young man, tanned, lean, handsome, with long wavy blond hair and a small goatee, leading his unsteady girlfriend by the hands, her feet splaying and weaving uncertainly, laughing at how terrible she was.

To have that moment. Just that one moment.

Foster touched her arm sympathetically. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

‘What?’

‘You’re thinking ignorance is bliss.’

She offered him a confessional shrug. ‘I wish I was someone else, Foster. Anyone else.’ She nodded at the couple, their legs beginning to tangle, the young man laughing along with his giggling girlfriend. ‘Being either of them would be nice.’

‘They’ll never experience anything like you’ll experience. What you’ve experienced already.’

Maddy sighed. ‘But it’s too much. I can’t cope with all of it.’ She looked at his old face, sunken cheeks and eyes framed by a fan of wrinkles, ‘laughter lines’ if one was being kind. ‘Every time I come and visit you… it seems I’ve got more and more to unload on you.’

He cackled. ‘It must get annoying, having to repeat yourself.’

She shrugged that away. That was the deal. That’s how it was. Foster was here at this time in Central Park. Mid-morning, feeding the pigeons, then on his merry way to live out whatever time he had left however he wanted. For him an hour that came and went, but for Maddy — reliving the same two New York days, the 10th and 11th September 2001 — it was a repeated chance to see him again. To get his advice. But every time they met, it would be the first time he’d seen her since walking away from the team and leaving her in charge. So their conversation began with an ever-increasing recap from her of the events she and the others had endured.