‘I remember Oscar,’ Nikos said softly, gravely. ‘He was great. If your Oscar’s like him he must be really special.’

‘He is.’

‘Does he eat everything like that?’ Oscar was still licking, stretching the experience for as long as he could. Nicky had chosen a rainbow ice cream for him and he’d wedged it between the planks on the bench. Oscar had a paw on either side of the cone so it couldn’t tip. His nose colour had changed now to green.

‘He enjoys his pleasures, does Oscar,’ Athena said, and Nikos finally looked at her. Really looked at her.

The look would stay with her all her life, she thought numbly. Disbelief. Awe. Anger. And raw, undisguised pain.

‘He is, isn’t he?’ he asked, and there was only one way to answer that.

‘He is.’

He closed his eyes.

Where to go from here?

‘You can’t do this, Thena,’ he said, and his voice was suddenly harsh. ‘No more. You walked away with this…’

‘I didn’t know.’ It was a cry of pain but she knew it was no excuse.

‘You walked away. And now…’ He paused, took a deep breath, then another. ‘Leave it,’ he said and she wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or to her. ‘I can’t take it in. Just come back to the island and we’ll sort it there. We need to get the succession in place. If you don’t come home the island will be ruined. How selfish can you be?’

‘Selfish?’ She would have gasped if she hadn’t felt so winded. ‘Me? Selfish.’ Then, before she could stop herself she produced the question that had slammed at her heart for almost ten years. ‘How old is Christa?’

‘Nine.’

‘And her birthday is when?’

‘June.’

‘So there you go,’ she snapped, the old, stupid grief welling up in her all over again. ‘Nicky’s nine and he was born in September. What does that tell you, Nikos?’

‘Nothing,’ he snapped. ‘Except that you should have told me.’