Georgia frowned. ‘Furious? No, not furious at all. I was hurt. Very hurt. I had trusted her. In the end I asked Fiona to look into things for me and, after some checking, we realised that they were Nicola’s debts and nothing to do with the house or with me. Fiona wrote to the credit people on my behalf and that was it. No more letters. But I think, reading between the lines, that she must have been intercepting the postman for a while. It was such a shame; she was a lovely girl.’

‘And you’ve never heard from her since?’

‘No. She’s the only one.’

‘Was it a lot of money?’

‘Just over a thousand pounds. Not an enormous sum, but enough. The irony is, if she hadn’t just vanished, she would have been able to pay it off quite easily.’

‘She would?’

Georgia stands up from the table and goes up the narrow stairs to her office. After a couple of minutes she comes back down carrying a metal cash box, and large black book, worn at the spine, and held shut with a piece of elastic tied in a knot. She puts them down on the table. ‘This is the rent book, and this box is where the rent money goes. When there are too many small-value notes, I go to the bank and get them changed into larger denominations. Everyone’s twenty-five per cent has always been kept here, in cash.’ She rests her hand on the cash box. ‘Of course, no one knows about the arrangement. Not until later.’

Tess frowns. ‘You aren’t declaring it to the taxman?’

‘It’s not my money.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘No, it’s like a savings account. I give it back.’

‘You give—’

‘I don’t need the money. I have the house and an inheritance I wasn’t expecting which has been invested and which gives me an income.’ Georgia stops for a moment as though not sure if she should continue. ‘I live quietly, Tess. I like it that way. I have enough to run the house, pay for the council tax, the window cleaner, the heating, the phone, the repairs and the food for everyone. I don’t have a mortgage. That money comes from my investments.’

‘Gosh.’

‘I save the rent money, and on the first occasion that my young women come back to see me after they have moved out, I give them the money back.’

‘What? All of it?’

‘Yes, all of it. Two years of rent. Of course, each person gets a different amount because how much I have for them depends on how much they have earned over the two years.’

‘Wow. I had no idea.’