‘If it’s OK with Fiona,’ Ken said, naming her diving partner.

‘Fine with me,’ Fiona sang out on the same frequency. ‘Let’s go.’

She took Celia’s hand and the two of them sank lower and lower into the water of Mount’s Bay, just off the coast of Cornwall in England. They, Ken and his crew had set out from Penzance an hour ago, stopping about a mile from the coast in a place that reputedly concealed a sunken pirate galleon.

‘Went down in a fierce battle with the British Navy,’ he’d told them as they made their way out to sea. ‘And they never recovered the treasure, so you may be lucky.’

‘You don’t need to give me your professional spiel.’ Celia had laughed. ‘Just having the experience is treasure enough for me.’

She’d forced herself to be patient while they strapped the cylinders onto her back and demonstrated how everything worked. She was wearing a full-face mask, which she had at first resisted.

‘I thought it would just be goggles and a mouthpiece connecting me to the oxygen cylinders,’ she’d protested.

‘Yes, but I want to keep radio contact with you, so you need a full-face mask,’ he had said firmly.

She’d yielded under pressure. Then Fiona had taken her hand and the two of them had gone into the water together.

Now Celia could feel her whole body deliciously chilly from the water encasing her outside the rubber suit.

There were more rocks to be felt, plants, sometimes even the exquisite sense of a large fish flapping past, which made her laugh with delight. But the real pleasure lay in the sensation of being free of the world and its tensions.

Free of Francesco Rinucci?

Reluctantly, she admitted that the answer was yes. She adored him, but she’d run away from him as far as she could go. She’d planned this dive a week ago, and kept it a secret from him, saddened by the need, but determined not to yield. If you were blind it was hard enough to keep control of your own life without having to deal with a man who loved you so much that he tried to muffle you in cotton wool.