I wonder what this place is like in the rainy season, he thought inconsequentially.

Lily didn’t move. She submitted to his touch without comment.

‘I think I loved you, Lily,’ he said, and she managed a ghost of a smile.

‘Benjy was conceived in love,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve always believed that.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘Just lucky we’re older, eh?’ she said, but her voice was strained to breaking point. She brushed his hand from her face, turned determinedly northward again and started walking. ‘Just lucky we’ve found sense.’

‘And you’ve found Jacques.’

‘As you say. Do you have anyone?’

‘No.’

‘You’re still running from relationships?’

‘I don’t run.’

‘No.’ She hesitated, and then glanced sideways at him. Cautious. ‘You’re angry?’

‘Maybe I am.’

‘Because I didn’t tell you about Benjy?

‘Yeah. But maybe you’re right,’ he said bleakly. ‘Maybe seven years ago I wouldn’t have wanted to know. I was dumb.’

‘We were both dumb.’

‘Mmm.’ He kicked some more sand and tried to think of other things besides how close this woman was, and how bereft she looked, and how he wanted to…

He couldn’t want. She had a life here and a son and a fiancé and he was here with a job to do.

He should be working. He should go back to the hospital and organise paperwork for the evacuations. He could help treat the minor wounds of islanders still cautiously presenting.

His team were doing that. He wouldn’t be needed again unless there was a blast-out in the hostage situation.

A blast-out. Benjy. His son.

Think of something else, he thought fiercely. They were nearing the headland where the compound lay and the strain on Lily’s face was well nigh unbearable. She was staring ahead as if she was willing herself to see through walls. He had to distract her.