By mid-morning, I was jittery and restless and barely able to concentrate on feeding and weeding the large rose bed; Paula had asked to see me at noon and I couldn’t wait to get it over with. The centre of the bed was full of standard roses: tall and neat with their foliage pruned to maintain the perfect shape. They weren’t my favourite, I liked the more free-spirited ramblers which climbed walls, found neighbours to mix with and searched for the sunniest aspect. I worked backwards with my hoe, turning over the soil, chopping the tiniest weeds with the blade and stooping every so often to yank out any larger offenders. I was straightening up when out of the corner of my eye I spotted the swish of bright fabric. A woman in her late fifties had settled on to a bench a few metres away, her hands clasped in her lap.

‘Lovely morning, isn’t it?’ I said, turning to smile at her.

I never said more than that; in my experience, if visitors wanted to talk they would.

She wore a red polka-dot dress with a full skirt, matching nail varnish on fingers and toes, and high-heeled wedge sandals. Her glossy caramel-coloured hair hung in waves to her shoulders and although she was wearing sunglasses which covered a large part of her face, contentment radiated from her.

‘Glorious,’ she said, returning my smile. ‘I love the sun. My late husband Raymond didn’t. He liked winter. Says it all, really; we were chalk and cheese.’

She gave a self-conscious laugh and I turned back to my hoeing.

‘I had that birdbath erected in his memory,’ she said after a few moments.

I looked across to the bed of stone chippings dotted with alpine plants. To one side was an engraved stone column with a shallow dish on top of it.

‘That’s charming,’ I said. ‘I like the fact that there are lots of different textures in the garden. It means that there’s always something to look at, whatever the season. And it’s lovely to attract birds.’

‘I chose it because it seemed fitting,’ said the woman, smiling with mischief. ‘Stone is hard and unyielding just like him; as opposed to a flower, which would bloom and grow and enjoy the sun. Also, he used to take pot-shots at the birds in our garden with his air rifle. I thought it was karma.’

There was clearly a story here, but it wasn’t my place to ask questions, no matter how tempting it might be.

‘This is my last visit to see him,’ she said, standing up and coming closer. ‘I’ve met someone else now. Someone who makes me happy. Raymond hadn’t done that for a long time.’

She gazed into the distance, her smile gone.

‘But you were happy once?’ I said softly.

A look of pain flashed across her face. ‘At first, yes … Do you know what a narcissist is?’