Clancy Moss, however temporarily exhausted, thrived on challenges, and the ability to adapt had been bred into her. With engineers for parents, she’d been brought up in Belize, various parts of Africa, Dubai, Hong Kong … sometimes in company compounds or city apartments but also in remote villages. She’d attended company schools, boarding school, local schools and international schools. She’d even, at times, attended Alice’s school, and had loved the feeling of having a settled home with Alice and Aunt Sally while her parents vanished into a part of Africa considered unsuitable for their daughter. Boarding school and its dull routines and restrictions came a poor second to sharing escapades with Alice and being spoiled by her aunt.

Once she’d come to the UK for uni she’d tried to re-create that feeling of belonging. She’d thought she’d found it with Will but now … Now she’d been pushed into the painful break from Will and her colleagues – she wasn’t sure whether it was still logical to call them friends – she needed to regroup.

OK, so, food first. Just to confirm what Aaron had said, she took out her phone. No service. So she’d just drive to Hunstanton and find a supermarket. Then she’d—

‘Yoohoo!’ came a creaky female voice. ‘Do you mind if I come into the garden? Hope not, because I’m in.’ The voice trembled a laugh.

Surprised into rising and facing the direction the voice had come from, Clancy had to grab the back of the bench as her head swam anew. A short, rotund woman with a dandelion clock of white hair and a sweet smile shuffled around the house. ‘Are you are our new Evelyn? I’m Dilys, from number two. I thought I’d say hello.’ By now Dilys was standing in front of Clancy, daisy-strewn wellies peeping from beneath a rose-splashed skirt. Her eyebrows bobbed enquiringly.

‘I’m taking the caretaker’s job, yes.’ It was impossible not to return Dilys’s smile; it was so twinkly and warm. ‘I was just wondering where I could find a supermarket. Or furniture shops. Aaron had to rush off before he could tell me.’ She supposed she was lucky that she had money in the bank but she hadn’t really bargained for the hassle of furnishing the Roundhouse when she decided to launch herself towards Nelson’s Bar.

Dilys’s grey eyes twinkled as she turned and let herself down stiffly onto the bench beside Clancy. ‘Furniture? I expect he’ll just bring the other stuff back. They stored it up at De Silva House – Aaron’s parents’ place – because Evelyn had her own.’

Clancy suppressed a wriggle of hurt that Aaron hadn’t mentioned something that, clearly, would make her life easier. Evidently, he didn’t want her here. So what? She’d been unwanted by people much closer and more important to her than Aaron De Silva. Her ex-fiancé and work colleagues, for example. And with her parents it had always only been fifty-fifty.

She shoved those negative thoughts away with a bright, ‘Was it Alice and Lee’s furniture? I’m Alice’s cousin, Clancy.’