‘So, what can I make you? Cheese and ham on sourdough with salad, mustard and mayonnaise? I could toast the bread – might be nice?’

‘Hold the mustard,’ she said, ‘and toast the bread and it sounds like the perfect sarnie.’

‘It may not be perfect, but it will be good, I promise,’ he said. ‘Don’t be too long!’

Helena’s hair was still wet and knotty when she returned. She had put it into a rough plait and tied the end round with wool as it took so long to dry properly. She hadn’t put on any make-up, because, as she would report to Amy later, she wasn’t going to dress up for a man when she didn’t want a man. She did, however, want a sandwich.

She could see that Jago had done a bit of tidying in the kitchen while she’d been in the shower. There were fewer power tools on the work surfaces and there was now a board on the worktop on which he was assembling ingredients.

After watching him cut a gherkin into wafer-thin slices she said, ‘Do you mind if I ask you why you seem to have several different styles of units in here? You’ve got a Shaker and a very modern alongside some interestingly retro orange knotty pine. What look are you going for?’

He laughed. ‘The orange knotty pine, of course! No, actually, I’ve just put in here bits of kitchen that no one else wants. People are always ripping out kitchens and starting again. I can often repurpose the good stuff but there’s always a bit left over which is what I get to keep. I’ll do something to make it all look a bit more sensible eventually – when I get round to it.’ The toast popped out of a very old-looking toaster that had a pattern of poppies and wheat ears on it. ‘My sister gives me all her cast-off toasters but I’ve kept this one. It’s old but it always works.’

He assembled two sandwiches so efficiently that she guessed he had worked in a sandwich shop at one time. He put mustard on one sandwich and put the other on a plate which he handed to her.

‘Now, eat that and tell me it’s not worth rescuing a kitten for!’

‘Are you still sure I couldn’t swap it for an extra three months?’ Helena asked, suddenly ravenous at the sight of the sandwich.

He sighed. ‘Quite sure. I was pushing it when I gave you six months when I first bought the property. But your studio, and the one next to it—’

‘Amy’s,’ said Helena.

‘That’s right. The two together are going to become a two-bedroom cottage for a family. They’ve been waiting to move into it for ages. I really do want to get on to it and that means I have to have you out.’