Once they were again bowling along towards the M11 she said, ‘Thing is, I’m supposed to be meeting someone at six.’ The ‘someone’ was Will, as she’d decided that settling things with him was easier (slightly) than settling the business concerns and she’d feel better once it was no longer hanging over her. Then a solution to the lads’ accommodation issue flashed into her mind, somewhere they’d have someone around and it wouldn’t involve her shelling out hundreds of pounds.

‘But on the plus side,’ she went on, grinning, ‘I’ve just thought of somewhere to get you a bed for a couple of nights.’

‘Ace!’ breathed Harry.

‘Awesome,’ crowed Rory.

When Aaron got home and saw the red eye of the answering machine winking at him from the kitchen wall he ignored it. He didn’t want to talk. He’d left his mobile at home today deliberately. Fuck everybody. ‘Except you,’ he said to Nelson, who’d flopped on the cool tiled floor after a sniff around the garden, where the late afternoon sunlight was gilding the edges of the acer leaves. Nelson waved his tail then put his nose on his paws and closed his eyes.

Aaron was tired, hot and fed up. All day he’d laboured in the kind of intense July sunshine that exhausted you if you were one of the tourists carpeting the beaches, let alone working in its full glare. His thoughts of Clancy had created a heaviness in his chest almost as great as the York stone he was hauling about to create a rockery for a couple of early retirees who’d bought a house in Old Hunstanton. They’d gone on and on about how lovely their life was on the East Coast compared to London, and actually he hadn’t wanted to think of London. He wanted to think of Clancy there even less. He’d imagined her putting on her gorgeous city-girl persona and simply returning to her old life, thinking of the village with amused disbelief that she’d ever gone there.

Would she email him and un-appoint herself as caretaker just as readily as she’d appointed herself? The rocks got heavier, the sun hotter. He kept visualising that moody website header she’d created for him, their two figures walking on converging paths. Maybe she should have arranged them so they walked away from each other instead.

His iciness yesterday … He recognised that he’d been protecting himself, but had it been worth it? Not worth it? Strong? Weak? Intelligent? The stupidest step any clumsy man had ever taken concerning a beautiful, clever, vulnerable woman?

Yeah, that, probably.

It wasn’t until he’d showered and eaten dinner in front of the TV that good sense reasserted itself and he listened to his messages.

The first was from the lady he’d worked for at Titchwell saying she’d given his number to a friend who wanted her garden terracing too.

The second was from the garage, confirming arrangements for his truck’s MOT.

The third began, ‘It’s Clancy. Harry and Rory were going to hitch to London—’ He listened to the rest in growing dismay. Jeez! Why had Clancy got involved? What was Jordy going to say? Then he sighed, hearing the worry in her voice and acknowledging that the boys really had put her between a rock and a hard place. The message had been left late morning and now it was evening. He returned the call without delay.