Still there was no concern.

It wasn’t the kind of relationship that dealt with concern. In any case work was busy and she only interrupted it when she had begun to feel unwell.

She had gone to the doctor to see what the matter was, and he had told her to go to hospital for a pregnancy test and there, in a cool methodical American hospital her pregnancy had been confirmed and finally she had called Alec to discuss it, on the contact number he had given her in his last letter. Everything was still cool - still controlled.

The office was marginally less busy that day, the weather nondescript. The Indian contact number felt alien and the phone had rung for ages. Eventually a foreign voice had answered her questions in English only met by questions batted back in a foreign language. She had been passed like a parcel between several accents, eventually a man with a strong European accent answering, but his words halting and aggressive as if she was bothering them and she had checked the time difference again to see if she had disturbed them in the night. No, it was still the afternoon. Before she had had time to take her eyes off the clock, his answer had hit her rolling.

Had she not heard? They thought they had contacted everyone involved. Alec had been ill for a little while in the commune in India and had suddenly taken a turn for the worse; everything that could have been done had been. But nothing had worked, and he had died quite suddenly. There had been a Hindu ceremony, and his body was burned. Really, someone should have told her…

She had hung up and sat perfectly still. The call had taken eighteen minutes of work time.

Was it true? How was it true?

It took days of acceptance but somehow his death had merged with the pregnancy and she had decided to keep the baby. The truth was less cool than she was - less sure. The truth was she could still speak and walk like Quinn but in reality she hadn’t felt herself for months now.

So, she was tracking Alec. Alec, who might be dead.

Alec, who was dead, because if he wasn’t dead, she would almost certainly like to kill him.