I loved Emma.' The words, so flat and final, explode into the air. 'But she lied to me. I thought perhaps I could have the love without the lies. With you, I mean. Do you remember your application letter? How you talked about integrity and honesty and trust? That was what made me think it might work, that it might be better this time. But I've never loved you the way I loved her.

But one day, when Toby is old enough, I will take down a shoe box from a shelf where it is kept, and I will tell him again the story of his sister, Isabel Margaret Cavendish, the girl who came before.

All these men who loved Emma, I think. For all her problems, men were fixated on her. Will anyone ever feel like that about me?

Love flows from me into him, and his blue eyes crinkle, huge and happy. Such a smiley baby. The midwife says it can't be a real smile, not yet, just some passing gas or a random quiver of his lip, but I know she's wrong.

Saul is as different from Simon Wakefield as it's possible to get, I find myself thinking. And Edward Monkford is utterly different from both of them. It seems incredible that Emma could have had relationships with all three men. Where Simon's eager to please, but also touchy and insecure, and Edward's calm and super-confident, Saul is pushy and brash and loud. He also has a habit of saying 'Yeah?' aggressively at the end of his sentences, as if trying to force me to agree with him.

I feel a thrill of excitement at this first tiny glimpse of self-revelation, of intimacy.

That was Emma—she'd have enjoyed knowing she had something like that, something that could blow her whole fucking life and mine apart if it came out. Her little bit of power.

I will take what I can from Edward. And then I will let them fade into history, all the characters in this drama. Emma Matthews and the men who loved her, who became obsessed with her. They're not important to us now.

I know it must look odd, given that I didn't even know Emma. But it seems to me that almost no one really knew her. Everyone I speak to has a different version of what she was like.

Sometimes it's as if I can shrink away to nothing. Sometimes I feel as pure and perfect as a ghost. The hunger, the headaches, the dizziness—these are the only things that are real.