Dilys beamed. ‘Her cousin! How is Alice? I never hear from her.’

‘I think she’s OK,’ Clancy answered carefully. After jilting Lee, Alice had made no bones about preferring to be invisible to anyone at Nelson’s Bar and had wheedled unashamedly to get Clancy to represent Alice’s interest in Roundhouse Row. ‘I’m on the move all the time anyway and you’re so good at stuff. Don’t make me interact with judgy big bro Aaron, puhleeeeease, Clancee.’ Clancy had sighed and said yes. People often said yes to Alice. Maybe it was because she just seemed to expect it, but also it was her pretty smile, the swish of her stylishly cut hair, or the way she had of linking arms as if to demonstrate how much she liked you.

And, wherever Clancy had been in the world, Alice had always sent letters, cards, messages, demands to know where Clancy was and what she was doing, requests for postcards or photos or to know when Clancy was going to come and live with them again. Whatever Alice’s faults, she and Clancy had a bond.

These days it was Alice’s travelling the bond had to survive, rather than Clancy’s. The only time they’d seen each other in the last six years was when Aunt Sally had died suddenly four years ago. Alice had reappeared for the funeral, white-faced and red-eyed over the loss of her mother. Then she’d sold the family home in Warwickshire and vanished again, her travel fund firmly bolstered by her inheritance.

None of this needed to be shared with Clancy’s new neighbour, so she just said, ‘Dilys, could you point me at a supermarket, please? I need supplies.’

Dilys’s face shifted its wrinkles into a delighted grin. ‘Can I show you instead? I don’t drive any more so it’s a boon for me to get a ride into Hunstanton. Tell you what,’ she swept on. ‘How about I trade you lunch? I’ve made vegetable soup and I was just about to have some.’

Warmth stole into Clancy’s heart at such a friendly offer. ‘What a brilliant trade. Thank you.’

She followed her to the next-door cottage, assailed by a deliciously oniony fragrance as Dilys opened the door. ‘Welcome to number two,’ she said. ‘It’s not as big as the Roundhouse but it’s been my home since I’ve been on my own. Take a seat at the table, lovie, and I’ll dish up.’

It seemed only seconds before Clancy was dipping chunks of bread into thick vegetable soup and sipping tea, looking around her. Dilys’s kitchen was full of … stuff. Heaps of fabric and wool teetered, jars of buttons or bowls of beads glowed with colour.

‘I’m a crafter,’ Dilys explained, following Clancy’s gaze. ‘Whatever I see or find I make into something else. It used to drive my poor husband mad. Still, it doesn’t concern him, not now he’s gone.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Clancy said automatically.

‘I still see him of course,’ Dilys continued, slurping up a soup-sodden square of bread.