She called Alice, but her phone was engaged and she didn’t want to add to her list of woes. Was it worth calling Dad, to see if he had any specialist advice for them?

Tara dithered. Who was his loyalty to, right now?

Her eye fell on Molly, her head bent over the kitchen counter as she started another friendship bracelet from the leftover kit Lily had brought.

No, she thought. The foreman will call Dad; let him deal with Sarah.

She moved around the kitchen, trying to make it cosier against the grey day outside, lighting a few of Ruth’s thick church candles in the glass lamps, plumping cushions, picking up socks and tea towels, straightening the art books on the glass coffee table. Tidying made Tara feel more in control. She didn’t like to admit it to herself, because it was so boring, but it did.

She picked up one of Keith’s enamel cufflinks. Molly’s pink hair bobble. A rainbow spoon from the studio. Tara felt a moment’s irritation at the mess, then thought, The house is turning back into a family home. Too late for her, though. Another family would be coming into it now.

‘Have you got any clothes for the wash?’ she asked Molly, once she’d filled the dishwasher. Every rainy day needed the soft smell of warm tumble-drying. Molly ran to get her muddy trousers and jumper from their dog walk, and while she was upstairs, Tara called through to the dining room.

‘Toby? Any laundry I can do for you?’

There was no response.

‘Oh dear,’ said Tara under her breath. His noise-cancelling headphones also cancelled favours. ‘What a shame.’

When Molly had filled her basket, Tara bumped it on to her hip down into the cellar. Ruth had created a basement laundry area where she could iron and listen to the radio, surrounded by lavender bags and shelves of starch sprays and French handwash liquids. It was probably Tara’s favourite spot in the house.

But as she put her foot down on the bottom step Tara sensed something was wrong. Her next step, on to the tiled floor, splashed.

In a panic, she put the basket down behind her and gazed around the utility room.

There was an inch of water covering the floor.

What had happened? Tara stepped gingerly over to the washing machine. She had very little knowledge of household maintenance, but she’d heard enough office tales of woe about washing machines flooding, pipes coming loose, that sort of thing, to know it was a fairly regular if annoying domestic occurrence.

At the back of her mind, a voice pointed out that there was another explanation for an inch of water on the floor, but she dismissed it. They were on a hill. It was impossible. This house didn’t flood.

All the pipes seemed to be connected, though.