It was at this moment that Glenys spotted something ahead of them, and realised it was the swinging sign of an inn. She gave Mo’s small hand a squeeze and spoke in her most schoolmistressy voice. ‘There now, aren’t we in luck? A nice little inn, not too big and expensive, which I do hope can give us a couple of rooms for the night. Once we’ve settled in, I’ll order us a meal and we can start asking questions. Wouldn’t it be marvellous if we found your family on the very first day of our quest?’

By this time they had reached the inn, which was called the Glas Fryn. As they neared the door it opened and the smell of hot food and beer came wafting towards them. The man who came out started to close the door behind him, then noticed them, grinned, and held it open. He said something in Welsh and then called out to someone behind him. Before Glenys could open her mouth Jimmy said, ‘We’re lookin’ for somewhere to spend the night. Does this place have rooms to let?’ The man ushered them inside and then called out once more to the man behind the bar, and Glenys realised that this was the first time in her life she had been on licensed premises, unlike Jimmy who, she knew, was in the habit of earning a few pence by scrubbing down pub floors or washing up large quantities of dirty glasses.

Telling herself that what she had imagined as a den of vice was clearly no such thing, she chided herself. You have got to start living in the real world, Miss Holier-than-Thou Trent.

The man behind the bar raised his eyebrows at her and smiled pleasantly. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked. He looked at Glenys’s coat, furred with a mixture of rain and snowflakes. ‘Come off the train, did you?’ He jerked his thumb at the man still hovering by the door. ‘Dick there seems to think you’re after finding if the Glas Fryn lets rooms. Well it do, but not at this time of year – no call for it, see, ’cos folk don’t walk the hills in the winter. But you might try Mrs Hughes, three or four doors on. She’s a keen one on earnin’ a few extra bob, though I can’t promise . . .’ He stopped speaking, dismayed. Miss Holier-than-Thou Trent had burst into tears.

Afterwards, she wondered whether it was the best thing or the worst that she could have done. The man behind the bar shouted: ‘Cath, Cath, come you through here. There’s folk wanting lodgings,’ and whilst Glenys was blowing her nose and wiping the tear tracks from her cheeks a round and motherly woman appeared from the back premises. She wore a large white apron over a black wool dress and was drying her hands on a striped tea towel. She smiled across at Glenys.

‘How can I help you, dear?’ she asked, and her fat and comfortable voice held a trace of the Liverpool accent with which Miss Trent had grown familiar during her one term in the city. ‘Wanting a room, was you? Well, as I expect Mr Jones told you, we don’t do rooms at this time of year, but Mrs Hughes, four doors down the road, might be willing.’ She cocked her head on one side and shrewd little eyes scanned the bedraggled trio. ‘And if you’re the new schoolteacher, come to instruct the kids whilst Miss Jones is ill with the measles, I know for a fact she’s expecting you.’ She tutted. ‘Miss Jones’s mam should have seen that she took the measles when she were a kid, then we shouldn’t be in such a pickle now.’