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Chapter 1
I sprinted up the steps at Venezia Santa Lucia station with minutes to spare before our train left without us, battling to keep up with Si, who was already several metres ahead and currently flinging himself through the glass doors of the station entrance.
‘Come on, Hannah!’ he yelled, disappearing out of sight.
I groaned under my breath, zig-zagging through a group of about a hundred and fifty tourists who had decided that this was the perfect place to start fumbling about with maps.
‘Sorry,’ I said, pushing past them, my breath ragged, my heart pounding in my chest. Missing the train was not an option; it would absolutely not be worth the fallout if we did.
I accelerated up the last few steps with beads of sweat trickling down my back, soaking through my flimsy cotton vest and pooling at the waistband of my jeans, which I now bitterly regretted wearing given the thirty-degree heat. I’d thought I was being clever: it would be freezing on a train in the middle of the night, surely, and so I’d dressed accordingly, which wasn’t ideal now, with the July sun beating down on top of my head.
I followed Si inside, struggling to keep my pace up, his blond hair bobbing in and out of view. My suitcase, clearly not designed for high-speed manoeuvres, kept either tipping over onto its side or slamming painfully into my ankle. It was as though everything lovely about Venice had disappeared the second I ran through the doors of the station. I couldn’t hear water taxis honking to each other any more or take photos of the reflection of the sun setting over the Grand Canal. Instead there was incessant chattering and too-loud announcements in frenzied Italian and the wails of hot, tired children. It was disappointing that my lasting impression of beautiful Venice might now be tainted by this chaotic, fluorescent-lit, concrete block of a station.
‘You’re slowing down!’ shouted Si over his shoulder.
He waited for me to catch him up and then grabbed my hand, pulling me after him. I must have looked ridiculous, my cardigan flying out behind me like a superhero’s cape while my boyfriend propelled me unceremoniously across the concourse. My feet had never moved so fast as we weaved through the crowds, swerving the scarily long queues for the ticket machines because Si had had the good sense to print ours out before we’d left London.
‘Right. Which platform?’ he said breathily, dropping his bag and stopping so suddenly that I tripped over the back of his shoe and almost went flying past him. Really, part of me felt like sacking the whole thing off and admitting defeat. We could spend another night in Venice, have a lazy dinner, a late-night stroll through the romantic backstreets of Cannaregio, the one area we hadn’t properly had time to explore. If Si’s sister, Catherine, hadn’t been getting married in Amsterdam the following afternoon, that was. She’d never forgive us if we turned up late or – worse – not at all.
I wedged my hands on my hips, panting, watching Si’s face as he concentrated on scanning the departures board, mumbling under his breath: Roma Termini, Milano Centrale, Verona Porta Nuova. I was surprised by his excellent pronunciation of Italian place names, a talent I’d had no idea he possessed.
‘Amsterdam, Platform 5,’ he said, flashing me a look and taking my hand. ‘Come on, Hannah. I think we can make it.’
We started to run, racing past a place called Relax and Caffè, the name of which must surely have been ironic. Following Si’s lead, I swung through the crowds, swerving to avoid the dangerously stealthy wheels of the mini suitcases that kept creeping up on us at every turn.
‘We’re almost there,’ he yelled, pointing at something up ahead.
Our train, decorated patriotically in the three colours of the Italian flag, hovered on its rails, sleek and still, its doors open, as if to taunt us: you could make it, but will you? Si reached across me, yanked the handle of my suitcase out of my clenched fist and sprinted ahead with both bags held aloft. Gasping for air, and despite now having an excruciating stitch, I leaned forward like a sprinter about to cross the finish line.
A whistle blew.
‘Fuck,’ shouted Si. ‘Wait!’ he yelled to a guard.
We charged towards the nearest carriage. Si threw our bags inside, shoving me up the steps after them. I swung round to check he was behind me, wincing as the doors slammed into him and then bounced open again as he forced his way through and they shut for good. Almost immediately the train began to move, juddering at first, then accelerating smoothly, slipping out of the shadows of the station.
‘You ok?’ asked Si, wiping sweat off his forehead with the palm of his hand.
‘Think so,’ I said breathlessly, rubbing at my right side.
I pulled off my cardigan, tying it around my waist and then leaning back, too exhausted to care that the nozzle of a fire extinguisher was pressing into my spine. When I held my arms out in front of me I noticed, in the golden light sifting through the windows, how tanned they were after a few days in the Venetian sun. How my usually dark brown hairs looked as though they’d been brushed with blonde. We were flanked by the lagoon on both sides now; private water taxis were going full-throttle out on the water, back and forth from the airport, probably. They cost a fortune those things and so, needless to say, I’d spent the entire trip observing them enviously from the heaving queue for the water bus.
Si bent down, unzipped his bag and plunged his arm inside, producing our tickets with a flourish. ‘At least one of us is organised,’ he said, chuckling to himself. ‘Seriously, Hannah. What would you do without me, eh?’
‘Pretty sure I’d manage,’ I mumbled under my breath. I wasn’t in the mood for his jokey comments about how useless I was.
He heard me and cocked his head, looking sceptical. ‘Not if the last hour is anything to go by.’
Anyone would think I’d meant to leave my purse on the counter of the cute little gift shop near our hotel. I hadn’t realised I’d lost it until I’d gone to pay for the water bus tickets and then, of course, we’d had to run back for it, darting through the crowds, avoiding the throngs of bum bag-wearing tourists meandering at a snail’s pace along the cobbled passages. The pretty, dark-haired local girl had retrieved it from under the counter, presenting it to me with a beaming smile. By the time we’d legged it back to the bus stop, the queue had quadrupled in size. I’d suggested we pool together our last few euros and jump in a private taxi, but Si had point-blank refused, citing outrageous prices. Considering the amount of money he must have spent on the trip already it had seemed like an odd place to draw the line.
He stood up and ruffled my hair. ‘We made it, that’s the main thing,’ he said.
I nodded, picking up my suitcase, struggling to elongate the handle and then catching my finger on it in the process. I winced, sucking it to dull the pain. Si, who hadn’t noticed, slammed the heel of his hand against a button, opening the doors through to the next carriage. I followed him like a lemming, stepping on someone’s toes every other second and subsequently apologising profusely.
‘Here we go,’ Si said chirpily, stopping outside the first-class couchette he’d booked us as a treat.
I waited while he slid open the door.
‘Oh,’ he said.
