The Summer Without You by Karen Swan Page A

astonished. ‘You can do that? I thought when they were gone, they were gone?’
    Ro shook her head. ‘Not necessarily. When you press “delete”, all you actually lose is the pathfinder to the photo in the system, not the file itself. I’ve got
data-recovery software that I bought for precisely this reason. It’s my insurance policy. I can’t afford to lose images from a shoot,’ she said, never moving her eyes from the
screen. ‘As long as you don’t take any new photos, you should be able to recover them; if you do, the new ones will write over the old ones and then they are gone for good.’
    An image of the two silhouetted children standing by the water popped up on the screen. ‘Aha!’ she cried, clapping her hands together delightedly. ‘Gotcha! You can’t
bully me, mister!’
    ‘Who’s bullying you?’ Hump asked, looking around the room as though to check whether he was missing anyone.
    Ro turned to face him, rubbing his bare arm with her hand. ‘I’d love to tell you,’ she said, beaming, ‘but . . . it’s a long story.’

Chapter Six
    She was awake at four. It wasn’t the sound of a sparrow pecking on the windowpane that did it, or even the distant cymbal crash of the waves on the beach, but the vast,
spreading emptiness of Matt’s side of the bed that blew over her like a cold breeze. Her right hand had habitually reached behind her, her right foot exploring the space for his legs, but
only the smooth expanse of uncrumpled cotton had met her touch – she could still only sleep on her side of the bed – and the realization he was gone had shattered her sleep for the
night.
    Ro groaned and blinked blearily, her face half smothered by the deep, feathered peach pillow, her left arm dangling over the side of the bed to the floor. Without moving her head, she swivelled
her eyes slowly, taking in her surroundings and trying to remember how the rooms in the house joined together, but she couldn’t. Last night’s tour had been brief to say the least
– they had stayed at the studio longer than expected, Hump intrigued to see more of her work and insisting she show him her back catalogue, and she was so tired on their return (3 a.m. London
time), she’d felt almost punch-drunk. Hump’s plans for supper on the porch had had to be drastically revised. That cookie had been her dinner, the coffee her nightcap, and Hump had no
sooner shown her her room – the largest guest room on account of her living there full-time – than she had started untying her shoelaces, drawn to the bed as though hypnotized. Hump had
only just managed to bolt from the room before she’d pulled her T-shirt over her head, too tired even to care whether her new housemate saw her in her underwear.
    She saw now the floor was wooden with wide, glossy boards the colour of treacle and had a pale green cotton rug atop it. Her bedstead was brass – creaky when she turned over – and
the old, tumbled linen sheets were covered with what seemed to be a hand-stitched eiderdown decorated with faded yellow, green and blue diamonds arranged in a star. Both Bobbi and Greg had to bring
their own bedding and towels, but Hump had agreed she could use his linens and save on the hefty cost of transporting her own over from the UK or having to buy new here. She noticed a thick bundle
of forest-green towels folded neatly on a rattan chair by the window, her own cargoes, T-shirt and bra strewn across the floor like a breadcrumb trail.
    She swept a leg across the fitted sheet beneath her – it was so old it had a silken feel to it now – and turned over with another groan, the pillow billowing either side of her face
like an airbag. The ceiling was boarded white, with a plain brass pendant light and peach shade, and a pair of unlined curtains hung from a metal pole, not quite meeting in the middle so that a
column of strengthening light was drawn along the floor and up the opposite wall, beside her head. There was a narrow