“Or maybe it never stopped,” Tom went on. “I should have guessed it hours ago. You used to be so full of life, so full of fun. Tonight I don’t think I saw you smile once. When did you last take a vacation?”

“You gave me your word, Tom. Your promise.”

Lambert studied the other man’s thin face. “Never mind a vacation, when did you last take any sort of break from work? How long since you relaxed for an evening, or for an hour? Not tonight, that’s for sure.”

“I go out all the time. I go to concerts and to dinner parties.”

“You do. And what do you do there? I bet you don’t relax. You interview people, and you take notes, and you produce a stream of articles. You work. And you’ve been working, incessantly, year after year. How long since you’ve been with a woman?”

Drake shook his head but did not speak.

Tom sighed. “I’m sorry. Forget that I asked that. It was a dumb and insensitive thing to say. But you need to face a fact, Drake, and you shouldn’t try to hide from it: She’s dead. Do you hear me? Ana is dead. Work won’t change that. Wishing won’t change it. Nothing can bring her back to you. And you can’t go on forever with your own emotions chained and harnessed.”

“You promised me, Tom. You gave me your solemn word that you would help me.”

“Drake!”

“Do you ever make promises to your children?”

“Of course I do.”

“Do you keep them?”

“Drake, you can’t use that argument, the situations are totally different. You act as though I made you some sort of solemn vow, but it wasn’t like that at all.”

“Then how was it? Don’t bother to answer.” Drake took the little recorder from his inside jacket pocket. “Listen. Listen to yourself.”

The words were thin in tone but quite clear.

…if I come back to you, in, say, eight or ten years, and I ask you again, will you do it? Will you help me? I want you to give me an honest answer, and I want your word on it.