She rang Alice’s number. The call was declined.

Enraged, she sent a rapid text, her finger ends hurting she stabbed the screen so hard. ANSWER THE BLOODY PHONE!!!! She gave that a minute to be delivered, then tried again.

Alice answered. ‘Hi, Clancy! I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you.’ She sounded guilty.

Clancy cut straight to the chase. ‘Did you and Genevieve tell Kaz something that made her pull back from accepting my offer to buy into the B&B?’

A shocked silence, possibly at Clancy’s voice emerging like a death-metal roar. ‘It wasn’t me,’ Alice protested. Then, more reluctantly, ‘I think Kaz mentioned your idea to Genevieve and Genevieve sort of hinted … Well, she said … Y’know, a bit gossipy.’

‘No, I don’t know!’ snapped Clancy. ‘Suppose you tell me?’

A pause, then Alice went on, sounding suddenly remorseful and uncertain. ‘It was … well, just like … there must be a reason you’d been dumped by your old colleagues and Will at the same time.’

Clancy could hardly believe her ears. ‘So she painted me as someone nobody wanted to be tied to?’

Alice’s voice got smaller. ‘Sorry. I didn’t really think how shitty that was. Wine was involved when she told me and she made it sound a bit like a joke she was playing on you because she was upset about you and Aaron. Then I wasn’t sure how to tell you. And then I left anyway.’

‘You’re my cousin.’ It was the phrase Alice had used so often, too often, to justify requests for help or treating Clancy unfairly. Clancy closed her eyes and leaned wearily against the wall, tipping back her head and closing her eyes against the sun. ‘I’ve taken a lot of responsibility on your behalf over the past six years.’

‘I know.’ Alice sounded genuinely distressed.

‘You never gave a thing back.’ Clancy’s voice strengthened as she realised just how sick of it she was. ‘Not a thing. When I was on the way to creating a nice new life here, you came back and ruined it, bringing your awful, crappy, bastard, obnoxious husband with you. And now you’ve run off and left him behind like a turd in a swimming pool so I have to find somewhere else to live at no notice.’

‘Oh! I never thought—’ Alice began to cry.

‘You must have thought, Alice. Even leaving aside whether you fully appreciated the effects of Genevieve stabbing me in the back about the B&B, the business I’d hoped would give me roots in Nelson’s Bar, you could see and hear Hugo being horrible to me on a daily basis.’

Alice cried harder. ‘I did ask him to stop.’

‘Big deal.’ Clancy felt so exhausted she could almost have dropped the phone and slept on the floor. ‘Find someone else to run Roundhouse Row for you in future. I’m going to be busy.’ She ended the call and stumped back to her car, intending to find somewhere to sit in the sunlight and try and work out what to do with her life.