That evening, after Nick Radcliffe left, Ash asked Arlo what he thought of Nick. Arlo said Nick seemed fine and accepted Nick’s explanations about his name change and former life coaching without suspicion. Ash pressed him about inconsistencies, including the disputed Zippo lighter, citing Jane Trevally’s claim that Paddy never owned one. Arlo dismissed Jane’s reliability and argued that a decades-old lighter was not decisive.

Ash reflected on how persuasive Nick had been: he claimed he changed his name due to a stalking ex, that Laura in Cambridge was a girlfriend rather than a wife, and that the children were Laura’s, not his. He said he hid this from Nina to protect himself from the stalker, apologized for the lack of transparency, and Nina reassured him. Ash noted Nick also had ready explanations for the pacifier clip and the poo bag, which she had not shared with Arlo.

Feeling exhausted, Ash said goodnight to Arlo. On her way upstairs, she paused at the window overlooking the sea and Christmas lights, and thought about previous Christmases, especially two years earlier when she was concealing her mental health crisis. She remembered Paddy’s gentle advice not to fear admitting mistakes. Six months later, after an incident that brought police to her Greenwich flat, Paddy had told her to come home.

Ash worried she might be fixating again on a middle-aged man and risking upheaval, but reaffirmed her need to protect Nina. Her attention then shifted to the wrapped gifts Nick had brought. Impulsively, she took her own gift to her room and opened it early.

Inside she found a pink box different from the Zippo’s packaging, embossed with a small rose that felt eerily familiar from some other time and place she could not place. The box contained three small, petal-studded soaps tucked in pink tissue. Ash, who loves bar soaps and seeks out quality ones, recognized them as handmade and likely expensive. She tried to recall where she had seen the rose logo and that exact pink before, but the memory would not surface.