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‘ I feel like we’ve travelled to another planet,’ Emily said. ‘Or finally returned to Earth.’

Just twenty minutes’ drive back along Scenic Highway 30A, Seaside was teeming with people. They were queuing along the line of Airstream trailers transformed into food trucks. Pushing in and out the doors of its upscale shops and boutiques. Taking selfies outside the picture-perfect post office. Children squealed and ran on the central square’s lawn while adults watched from chairs dotted around the palm-tree perimeter, plastic cups of mixed drinks in their hands.

It had only been twenty-four hours, but Emily had never been so glad to see crowds of people, even if it meant they’d had to wait fifteen minutes for a table at Bud and Alley’s, a beachfront bar and restaurant bursting at the seams with happy patrons. It was worth the wait. They’d been seated at a high-top on the restaurant’s roof-deck and were now enjoying panoramic views of Seaside’s beach. What had happened to her back in Sanctuary was already feeling like a vivid dream, one whose details she’d started forgetting the moment she woke. The first sip of cold rosé pushed all thoughts of it from her mind.

They studied the menu, murmuring comments about things looking good and not being sure what to pick. He went for the crab cakes. She went for the hamburger. Their waiter brought water, took their food orders and disappeared again. They sat in silence for a little bit, letting the conversations around them fill the void. Then, simultaneously, they turned to look at each other and laughed awkwardly.

‘I actually love this,’ Jack said, which made Emily wonder what he thought she’d been going to say.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she agreed.

‘It is, but I meant no one having a clue who I am.’ He took a swig of his non-alcoholic beer. ‘I thought I’d have that in New York, but of course there was an Irish couple checking into the hotel at the same time. I didn’t even get up to the room before I was recognized.’

‘Did they talk to you?’

‘They talked about me, loud enough for me to hear.’

‘That must be hard.’

Jack shrugged one shoulder.

‘What about your flight over?’ Emily asked.

‘We used the private terminal, but because Dublin has US pre-clearance, they can’t drive you directly to the plane for US flights. You have to go through with everybody else. That took ages, and then the flight was delayed so we ended up spending two hours in the main lounge. By the time we boarded, people were openly taking photos of me with their phones.’

Emily was stuck on the revelation that rich people could avail themselves of a service where – surely she hadn’t heard this right – you were driven directly to the plane ?

And then she thought, Who was the we ?

‘I almost wish people would say something,’ Jack went on. ‘The whispering and staring and the pointing-their-phones-at-me is somehow worse. They’ve no shame and no balls.’ He lifted his beer bottle, pointed its neck at the beach. ‘This is rare for me. To be outside, in a crowd of people, and not feel like I’m being stared at it. It’s a safe bet no one here knows who I am. Or gives a shit.’

‘Did it ever feel good?’ Emily asked. ‘Being famous?’

‘I don’t know if I’d call it being famous.’

‘Being in the public eye, then. Strangers knowing who you are.’

‘It was funny, mostly,’ he said. ‘Because, Ireland. Either people know exactly who you are but don’t want to give you the satisfaction of letting on, or they think they know you but don’t know from where and they assume it’s their real life. That you’re, like, their friend’s friend, or someone they used to work with, or a guy from their gym. And they’ll greet you with a big friendly smile and go, “Hi, how are you? How are things?” before the penny drops. Sometimes it never does and they walk off, having had a whole exchange with you, going, “Where do I know that guy from?”’

The group at the table next to them suddenly roared with laughter.

‘And look,’ Jack said, ‘it makes things easier in lots of ways. I acknowledge that. People want to do things for you and give you free stuff and make sure you don’t have to wait or queue. So it was never all that bad.’ He paused. ‘It’s what’s happening now that’s really horrible.’

‘You mean …’ Emily didn’t know how to say it except plainly. ‘People suspecting you of having something to do with Kate’s death?’

‘That, and the fact that I’m more famous now than I’ve ever been. Never mind the Olympics. Never mind competing in the Tour. Never mind my charity work or my successful business or my wife’s achievements. No. Fuck all that. All that matters now is that I might have killed someone – and it matters more than anything else ever has.’ He twisted his beer with two fingers. ‘That’s … That’s what’s tough to take.’

‘How did Kate feel about it?’

‘About being famous?’ He shook his head. ‘She didn’t like it. All she wanted to do was work in TV, in front of the camera. But when things started taking off for her – when she went from weekends to weekdays – in real life, there was a high price to pay.’

‘Sorry,’ Emily said. ‘Weekends to weekdays?’

‘On Sunrise .’

Emily’s face must have betrayed that she didn’t know what he was talking about.

‘The TV show Kate was on,’ he said. ‘She used to just do the weekends, but then she got promoted to the main presenting team, the ones who do it weekday mornings.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘Didn’t you, like, research us?’

‘Ah, not really, no. There wasn’t time and, well … I’m helping you write the story you want to tell. I’m not writing about you.’

‘I guess we weren’t as famous as we thought,’ Jack said, bemused.

‘It’s more that it’s been years since I watched live TV.’ Emily waited a beat and then said, ‘What price did she have to pay?’

‘Just, you know, getting recognized more. She was in the changing rooms in some clothes shop on Grafton Street once, and someone, like, pulled back the curtain and started telling her how much they loved the show while she was stood there in a bra and jeans. They even tried to take a selfie with her. Absolutely no boundaries. And those were the nice people.’

‘And the not-so-nice?’

‘Comments about her appearance,’ Jack said. ‘The way she wore her hair. What she wore. Her accent, even. And I don’t just mean online – people would write in . They’d sit down and handwrite letters and go to the post office to get a stamp for them. To tell a woman they didn’t know what they thought of her. Fucking dickheads.’ He exhaled. ‘She always denied it, but I think that’s the real reason she quit.’

Emily didn’t know that she had. ‘When did she do that?’

‘A year before,’ Jack said. There was no need to ask before what. ‘She said it was feeling like a grind and that she wanted to take a break and think about doing other things, but I don’t know. I mean, I believed her, I just don’t think it was the whole story. I didn’t need to be in Dublin, so we sold our apartment and moved to Adoran full time.’ Then he said, so quietly she barely caught it, ‘I watch clips of her on the show, every night before I go to sleep.’

A sudden scream drew their attention to the beach, but it was just a couple of children happily fleeing a parent chasing after them with a water gun.

‘How come you bought a house there in the first place?’ Emily asked. ‘In Adoran?’

‘I just wanted somewhere quiet I could hide away.’

‘What will happen to it now?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘That’s the question. All this, it’s taken away my ability to earn a living. I’ve had to step away from Exis, no one wants me for speaking gigs, and brands aren’t exactly beating down my door. I spent what little I had left repairing the damage so I could move back in. I don’t want to sell it, but …’ He sighed. ‘It may come to that. And soon.’

‘You moved back in ?’ Emily couldn’t hide her surprise.

Jack nodded. ‘About six weeks ago.’

‘Is it not difficult for you?’ She didn’t think she could live in a house where anyone had died, let alone someone she’d known and loved.

Kate had been found at the bottom of the stairs. He must cross that spot a dozen or more times a day.

What did he think when he did?

What did he feel?

‘It was difficult,’ he said. ‘It is , sometimes. But that was Kate’s home. Our home. And yeah, one terrible, horrific thing happened there one night, but before that there were so many perfect days and weeks and months. She wouldn’t want me to leave it.’ He took another swig of his beer and then said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask – are you OK?’

Emily blinked at him.

Here they were, talking about his dead wife and him living in the home they used to share, and he was asking if she was all right?

‘Just because you seemed a bit preoccupied earlier,’ he added.

‘Did I?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When?’

A slight grin. ‘Are you going to answer me or just keep asking questions?’

‘Everything’s fine.’ She smiled at him with an expression that she hoped communicated the same lie as her words. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. I went to bed too early last night and woke up way too early this morning.’

‘We could get the food to go, if you like?’

‘Oh, no, no.’ She waved a hand. ‘No, I’m grand. Really. This is perfect, actually. It’ll help me stay awake until a reasonable hour.’ She nodded towards the beach. ‘And it looks like we’re in a great spot for the sunset.’

‘That’s their thing, you know,’ Jack said. ‘This is the place to watch the sunset in Seaside, allegedly. It’s a local tradition. The restaurant has been here since the beginning, when there were only, like, a dozen houses built. Rumour has it, they ring a bell.’

‘A bell ?’

‘Yep. And the very first thing here, before there were any houses, was a farmer’s market.’ He grinned. ‘Aren’t you impressed with my useless Seaside knowledge? And there’s plenty more where that came from. I fell down a hole on Wikipedia last night.’ His face turned serious again. ‘The reason I asked if you were OK is because I was worried that maybe you were regretting this. Taking the job, I mean.’

Emily shook her head. ‘No, not at all.’

That much was true. What she regretted was getting herself into a situation where she’d had no choice but to take it.

‘You didn’t know about Neil though, did you? That was just me totally sticking my foot in it and you being too polite to say so.’

‘I didn’t know about him specifically,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘But given how quickly everything happened, I assumed it was something like that.’

Not true.

Emily took a sip of her wine and was surprised to see that the glass was already half empty. She shouldn’t have been, because she was already feeling the effects. Between the heat, the fact that it had been hours since she’d had lunch and not much of it, the lack of sleep, how quickly she was drinking this … Her edges were already losing their shape, getting warm and blurry.

But she was also emboldened. She opened her mouth to ask Jack what had happened with Neil—

‘Excuse me?’ a new voice said. A woman who had been sitting at the next table was now standing between their seats, smiling apologetically. ‘I’m so sorry, but would you mind taking our picture?’ She pointed behind her to a table of equally smiling and apologetic faces.

‘Sure,’ Emily said, sliding off her stool.

At the same moment, Jack’s phone began to ring. Before he plucked it off the tabletop, she saw G RACE flash up on screen.

‘I’ll just …’ he said to her, getting up and pointing to the quieter part of the restaurant. He put the phone to his ear and said, ‘Yeah?’ as he walked away.

‘Oh, you’re so kind, thank you so much.’ The woman handed over an iPhone. ‘Can you try to get the pavilion in the background?’

Emily assumed by pavilion the woman meant the only thing visible that wasn’t sand, sea or sky: a gleaming white wooden tower, obelisk in shape, through which the beach was accessed.

The group lined up with it behind them, linked arms and smiled wide. Emily took a few shots, handed the phone back and tried not to look offended when the woman immediately started scrolling through them to check they were up to scratch.

‘They’re great, honey, thank you.’ She looked over Emily’s shoulder to where Jack must be standing. ‘Want me to take yours?’

‘No, we’re OK.’ We don’t need to remember this moment. We’re not actually on vacation, you see. He’s suspected of a high-profile murder and I’m helping him write a book about it. ‘Thank you, though.’

The woman returned to her seat.

Emily felt conspicuous now, sitting alone. All of the surrounding tables were filled with boisterous groups and, when she looked over her shoulder, she saw that, up at the bar, every pair of stools was taken by a couple facing each other. Even on the level below, where high chairs were pulled up to the fence that separated the restaurant’s ground-floor deck from the sand dunes, there was only one person sitting alone.

And Emily recognized her.

Tall Blonde Woman, from the plane. From both planes.

She was half-turned in her chair, her right side facing the beach and her left facing Emily’s vantage point. There was a Coke and a nearly empty basket of fries sitting in front of her, and she had a phone to her ear again. Her brow furrowed at whatever the person on the other end of the line was saying and then, with her free hand, she dug out a pair of sunglasses from the bag hanging off the back of her chair and slipped them on.

The airport was about an hour’s drive away. Was it weird that, of all the places within its radius – and this whole area was packed with beach resorts and seaside towns – another passenger who’d been on both of Emily’s flights was also here , in the closest town to Sanctuary?

Or was she just totally overthinking this?

‘We have to go.’ Jack was back, standing at her elbow. ‘Now. That was Grace on the phone. She says someone broke into the house.’