The rain, which had started as drizzle as I left home, grew heavier the closer I got to London, while the voice in my head was growing louder.

Why are you doing this, Hannah?

It wasn't because I wanted to. I hadn't felt I had a choice. An hour ago, I was drawing a line under another long day, about to pour myself a glass of wine, trying not to think about Matt. But he was in my mind, constantly, his beautiful face, the sadness in his voice. I'm sorry, Hannah. I can't do this anymore. It isn't working ... Words I hadn't expected, the audible sound of my life changing, foreshadowing the shock that was about to hit me. Shock that was followed by agony. You can't mean this, Matt ... Our relationship is everything to me ... His response, which still haunted me: If we were that close, you should have been honest with me ... My apology, desperate; my attempts to explain; the sinking realization that it was too late. Time wasn't making it any easier. I couldn't think about Matt without pain sweeping through me, but nor was I ready to block him out.

Evenings were the worst time. It was March, still dark too early, leaving me alone in the empty house with only my memories and the ragged emotions that tore through me. I'd been torturing myself, remembering the day six months ago Matt had moved in, when my mobile buzzed. The call was from a detective inspector someone. A woman. I hadn't registered her name, just sheer disbelief as she told me that my sister had had an accident.

As she spoke, I felt the ten years Nina and I hadn't seen each other shrink to nothing, as for a few seconds my mind ran haywire. "What do you mean? What's happened? Is she all right?" My imagination was picturing Nina involved in a car crash or hit and run. "Which hospital is she in?"

But I knew from the hesitation in the policewoman's voice before she spoke. A silence that didn't need words.

"I'm sorry, but by the time we got to her, it was too late."

Words that hid the details of what had happened to her, but not the truth, that my sister was dead. I was numb all of a sudden, as an image of her came to me: slender, vibrant, tormented. Nina belonged in the land of the living, not a morgue. Her son Abe was at the house alone, the detective inspector went on, breaking into my thoughts. Abe's school had me listed as next of kin.

"How soon can you get here?"

I was next of kin? For a moment, I was stunned. "I can leave in a minute." Suddenly I remembered. "I need her address."

Shock compounded on shock as I wrote it down. When we'd been absent from each other's lives for so long, it made no sense that Nina had named me next of kin.

But, then, we were sisters. Blood is thicker than water.

The DI's voice broke into my thoughts. "How long will it take you to get here?"

"I'm not sure. I live in the New Forest. An hour and a half maybe? It depends on the traffic."

As I switched off my phone, a fleeting picture of Abe came to me, of the last time I saw him — a small, lost figure, standing in front of a sash window. There were no curtains, just the peeling paint framing the expanse of darkness outside. Abe had been wearing his pajamas, his feet bare, Nina standing beside him, as though they were watching something together. I remembered seeing him reach for her hand; noticing Nina's lack of response; after a few seconds, Abe's hand falling away.

Unless his older brother, Jude, was around, which somehow I doubted, as far as I knew Abe had no one. So I was driving. Then out of nowhere, I was thinking of the Cry Babies, the band in which I'd been the lead singer — in my late teens, early twenties, when life had been simple. Why was I thinking about the Cry Babies, with everything else that was going on? But I knew what had reminded me. It was the many times we'd driven up this same stretch of the M3 toward London for some gig or other, music blaring, Danny's van filled with smoke from the Gauloises he chain-smoked, the scent of youth and hedonism.

The car in front slowed down suddenly, jolting me back to the present. Slamming my foot on the brakes, I felt my car skid slightly on the wet road. My heart lurched. I needed to focus.

Dropping back into the slow lane, I peered ahead through the windshield, at the car lights multiplied in the rain, thinking about Nina. Desperate to leave home, at seventeen I'd moved in to her cottage in a remote part of Hampshire. Nina was nine years older than I was and, like me, had left as soon as she could get away. It was the early days of the Cry Babies — gigs had been few and far between and money tight. Nina had taken me under her wing. She always had, back then. My big sister, who had seemed to have her life so figured out, was used to rescuing people. At the start, they'd been happy, carefree days. But so much time had passed. So much had changed.

For a while, I came and went from Nina's place, as the band worked hard and played hard, pushing ourselves in pursuit of the dream. Then after three years together, it paid off. The Cry Babies had looked set for the stars, with a nationwide tour supporting another band and a record deal being talked about. The band had taken over my life by then, and I was often away, traveling around the country, spending less and less time at Nina's. Now, it felt like another lifetime.

I wasn't the same person I'd been then, but things happened; life changed people. That thought brought me back to Matt again, to our first meeting, two years ago, at a New Year's Eve party. It had been a meeting of eyes across a crowded room, which sparked an instant attraction. We met again, by chance, a few days later. Over cups of coffee on a park bench bathed in autumn sunshine, he told me he wanted to see me again. I remembered elation punctured by shock, as in his next breath, he told me he was married.

When I got up and walked away, I remembered him sitting there, staring into his coffee cup. I'd reached the edge of the park before I heard his voice behind me, saying he wasn't sure what was happening to him, but please ... he had no right to ask, but couldn't I give him time to work things out?

Difficult months followed, months during which Matt wrestled with himself, while I was almost forced to give up on him. But six months ago, he'd moved in with me. It was a new beginning, the start of the rest of our lives together. It hadn't been easy. Matt's ex-wife had refused to let go, trying to persuade him to come back to her, never seeming to understand that you can't force love. That it's a gift.

I'd believed in Matt, trusted him implicitly. With the rest of my life ... What a mistake. I'd been so wrong.

Now, confronted with the latest twist fate had thrown at me, I was finding my way toward the address the police had given me, thinking about the last time I saw Nina, hardly able to believe it was as long as ten years ago, when our interwoven lives had been irrevocably wrenched apart. It had been a brief visit that ended as it usually did by then, in an argument, but our relationship had been fraying for some time. After the band broke up, Nina had wanted me to salvage what was left of my career, to keep trying and not give up. But, devastated, I'd done the opposite, isolating myself — from ridicule, from the world, from everyone. After one hit record, fate had intervened, marking a fork in the road for the band, veering us sharply away from success toward oblivion. But...