But Baxter, ever hopeful of more biscuits, is having none of it, and follows Tess up the stairs and back down again with great determination. They leave by the back door, Baxter wearing his new bright green harness.

Outside in the street Tess instinctively feels for the clip-on fitness tracker she keeps in the pocket of her fleece and pulls it out to examine it. The battery has been flat for days and there seems little point in carrying it if she isn’t going to store the data and analyse it and compare it to last week, last month, last year, and look at her weight and compare that with the step count and plan the next week ahead and . . . she holds it gingerly between her finger and thumb as though it is contaminated in some way. How long has she been using it? She tries to remember. September, the birthday before last. Sixteen months? Seventeen? It was her birthday present from Patrick, bought on a trip to New York, just after it was launched. All those steps counted, notes compared as she tried to beat his daily total, and then feeling like a complete slacker when he out-stepped her. And what did any of it mean now anyway? She takes a firmer hold of Baxter’s lead, and sets off for Blackford Pond and the hills behind it. As she turns the corner, she pauses briefly and discards the tracker on the waist-high wall of a random house. Baxter is already tugging on the lead, and is ready to get up to his belly in leaves and mud. He doesn’t care about the number of steps he takes, and now, neither does she.

Chapter 58

Mid-March 2011

Tess and Georgia both hear the letterbox snap, and they reach the front door at the same time. Georgia is wrapped up in a tangerine bathrobe and is pink-faced from being in a hot shower for longer than usual. A white towel is wrapped around her wet hair like a turban and it makes her look even more flushed.

Tess has careered down the stairs at full pelt, chasing Baxter, who seems to anticipate the arrival of the post as though a sixth sense is sending him messages from the end of the street. The two women stand politely, each waiting for the other to bend down and retrieve the letters from the mat. They aren’t yet completely at home in one another’s company, and a degree of reserve is still there, despite the best efforts of Baxter, who pesters each of them for treats, without favour.