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Then I had three and a half hours to kill.

I continued south, not caring where those New York no-go areas were, having just battled my way through one of them. It was hot and humid and noisy, exhaust fumes from the endless traffic mixing with the aroma of soft pretzels from the carts on street corners. I sweated steadily.

Eventually I reached Wall Street itself, a narrow dark canyon running downhill between sheer cliffs of stone and glass towers. Men my age in suits and women in National Football League shoulder pads powered along the sidewalks, driven with an urgency that reminded me of a fire emergency drill on the Hamilton. Vicky had said she worked for a firm called Bloomfield Weiss somewhere on an adjoining street; presumably at that very moment she was learning how to ask people to calculate square roots for her.

An urgent beat emanated from a knot of suits on the sidewalk; something had distracted them. I took a look. A young black kid, no more than twelve, was breakdancing on a mat in their midst, writhing to the bass of the boom-box beside him. The kid was doing well — his upturned baseball cap was half full of coins and dollar bills.

I walked down the street and found a bench in Battery Park next to an old guy muttering to himself and sipping something out of a brown paper bag. On closer inspection, he wasn’t that old. Forty, maybe even thirty-five. A Vietnam vet. Someone who had lost his life for his country, even though he could still breathe. And drink.

‘How are you doin’, man?’ I said.

He turned, looked at me as if I was crazy, and then carried on with his monologue. I pulled out a ten from my wallet and offered it to him.

‘Keep your goddamn money,’ he snarled.

So I kept it. A wave of shame washed over me. Shame that I had offered him the money. Shame that I hadn’t insisted that he take it. But most of all, shame that I claimed I was serving my country, when all I was doing was eating, sleeping and working in the safety of a metal tube hundreds of feet beneath the sea.

This guy had served his country.

I stared out at the orange Staten Island ferries scurrying across the harbour under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty.

My stomach flipped.

What was this? It was true I had only ever had one long-term girlfriend before, Christina, whom I had met senior year in high school. We had made it through three of the four years of college. In the years since then there had been several other women, but none of them had lasted. It wasn’t just that the punishing schedule of months on patrol messed things up. They just weren’t special enough to make the effort, and it took some effort to maintain a relationship in the Navy.

None of them had knotted my stomach like this.

I headed back into the heat and bustle of the city. I stopped at an air-conditioned bar on Broadway and had a beer to cool down after all the walking, and to calm my nerves. Thirty minutes to wait. This was stupid. Donna thought I was a mass murderer. She had only agreed to have dinner with me because she felt guilty about being rude. And because she was drunk. She was drunk, wasn’t she? Would she even remember?

This was going to be a disaster. Possibly a humiliating disaster if we argued again. A change of plan was required. Just buy her a drink and then if things looked as bad as I was pretty sure they would, make my excuses and leave.

I had planned to get to the restaurant, an old pink building on the corner of Mulberry Street, five minutes early, but I mistimed it and was three minutes late. A bad start: we naval officers are precise about time.

I walked past the window of the restaurant, and saw she was already there, waiting, alone at a table a few feet away from the window.

She was looking away from me, toward an old reproduction poster of Ravenna, her lips in that half-smile.

She was indeed beautiful.

I saw her begin to turn. My instinct was to pull back, to make sure she didn’t see me staring, but something made me keep still.

I held her gaze.

The half-smile became a full smile.

I never did catch that last train to New London.

Friday 29 November 2019, Day after Thanksgiving, Norfolk, England

‘Oh, shit.’

Toby opened his eyes and rolled over. His wife was sitting up in bed scowling at her iPad.

‘What is it?’ he asked her.

‘You know that acquisition I’m working on? In France?’

‘Yes.’ Alice was always working on some acquisition or other, and they were often in France, since she spoke good French. She was good about never being too specific, at least until deals had been announced. Confidentiality.

‘They want to make an announcement to the market Monday morning.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Don wants me to come in later today and Saturday to work on it.’

Toby sat up, rubbing his eyes. ‘Have you told him you can’t? He of all people should understand it’s Thanksgiving.’ Don was American. Alice worked for an American law firm.

‘That’s the problem. He’s in the States, so he can’t do anything. The problem is the stupid client doesn’t realize it’s Thanksgiving.’

‘And what country does the stupid client come from?’

‘Britain.’

‘What are you going to do?’

Alice sighed. ‘I’m going to have to go in.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Toby. ‘Did Don ask you or tell you?’

‘He asked me.’

‘Well then?’

‘Don’t guilt-trip me on this!’ Alice said. ‘I know we should stay here. But unless I go back today, there’s a good chance the client will lose the deal.’

And that would be Alice’s fault. Or she would believe it was her fault. And a deal falling through because it was her fault was not something Alice could countenance.

‘OK,’ said Toby. ‘I won’t guilt-trip you. I promise.’

Alice’s glare softened. She reached out for Toby’s hand under the covers and squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry, Toby. I know you’re worried about me. I just don’t have any choice.’

‘I know,’ Toby said. He knew she really didn’t want to let her family down. That was why she was upset: because, forced to choose between client and family, she was going to choose client and she hated herself for it. ‘You wouldn’t leave now unless you had to. And your dad and sisters will know that too. Shall we go after breakfast?’

Alice leaned over and kissed Toby on the lips. ‘Thank you.’

Alice made pancakes for breakfast. American pancakes, small and round and thick, topped with thin rashers of bacon and maple syrup — real maple syrup from Vermont, brought over on the plane the day before by Brooke.

Alice’s strategy was to pick off her family members one by one as they dribbled in to the kitchen. Toby could see them all question her decision, but none of them spoke their doubts out loud. They knew they couldn’t argue with Alice on this one.

A look nearing pain crossed Bill’s face when she told him. She said she was sorry and gave him a hug.

Not for the first time Toby resolved that when Beachwallet became a proper company with lots of staff he wouldn’t make them work over Thanksgiving. Or Bastille Day. Or Yom Kippur or Eid. Hell, he would give them St George’s Day off.

The front door banged and Justin appeared, followed by his wife. ‘Jeez. This town is crawling with cops,’ he said.

‘Well, we saw two of them,’ said Brooke.

‘Two is crawling for Barnholt,’ said Bill.

‘Must be investigating Alice’s pancakes,’ said Maya, who was wearing disconcertingly skimpy nightwear.

‘Oh and, Dad,’ said Brooke. ‘There’s a leak in the faucet in the bathroom in the Cottage. It’s nothing big, but I thought I ought to tell you.’