Epilogue
One year later
The sun was a bright yellow ball high in the blinding-blue Indian sky, but its heat was gentle as Jane Wutheridge sat down on the low marble seat in exactly the same place as Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana and countless others had sat.
Her eyes weren’t large enough to take in the beauty of this place.
Somewhere she had always wanted to be, something she had always wanted to see and now she was here and it was in front of her and it was every bit as superlative as she had imagined it to be.
She had no idea, still, what had happened to them all – the eight of them, the Christmas before last. But as her darling Clifford had waxed lyrical in his later years, some things could not be defined by science or reason and the mystery of them just had to be accepted.
Science did not have all the answers and it never would.
And so she had accepted it, as he had about his own ‘experience’, as a most special gift.
She had always said she would never visit the Taj Mahal alone but she wasn’t alone, because she could feel him here, sitting beside her, the warmth of his presence unmistakable.
He was never more than a mere breath away, barely anything separating them, a gossamer-thin barrier, his voice a soft whisper she heard often.
There was no doubt in her head that he was there.
‘Isn’t it marvellous, Jane? I’m glad we came.’
And no one would ever persuade her otherwise.