Rob cut him off. ‘Great! Thanks, Peter, we’ll take that as a yes. This would be a good news story for the whole community.’

‘So who is this white knight in shining armour?’ asked Louise the vicar. ‘Someone local?’

Butterflies fluttered in Tara’s chest. She wasn’t sure if she should say something or keep quiet. She turned her phone over on the table and realized it was still on silent. She’d missed two calls. One from her dad, one from Toby.

Now they called her.

Alice consulted her notes. ‘It’s an architecture firm based in London, but there’s a connection with the area – I think the founder is from here originally? KPH Associates is the name of the firm. I did a quick search online and it’s won lots of awards, for, um, eco builds and another one for a hotel, I think, and they worked on something to do with the London Olympics? I mean, it all sounds proper.’

Proper. Yes, Dad was definitely proper. Tara had checked the website herself, to make sure the pro bono stuff wasn’t a convenient lie (it wasn’t), and this time she’d seen the website with different eyes. The slick international consultancy was her father’s. Teams and teams of people worked for him. He was a set of initials, a brand. That was her dad.

‘Apart from which,’ Alice was going on, ‘I know Troutbridge parish council have been struggling to find anyone available to even do a quote before September, so even if he magics up some builders to fit some new toilets, this is literally a godsend.’

Tara watched the reactions round the table: surprise, relief, curiosity. Not one of them knew she was connected to him. Not one of them was thinking, Does this man have an ulterior motive for this act of generosity? – apart from her. Catherine Chambers was already looking up KPH Associates on her phone, and, going by her expression, was impressed.

Tara took a deep breath and tried to see this from Rob’s perspective, or Alice’s, or any of the Troutbridge residents missing their weekly yoga or life drawing. It was a dream come true. But now their excitement was real, and the offer was there on the table, all she could see in her mind’s eye was the treehouse.

Dad had promised to build a Peter Pan treehouse for her and Toby while they were away on a half-term break with Mum in London. Tara had told her friends at school that they could come round and play in it, even shown them the drawings he’d sketched out for her on his special drawing pad. It would have working shutters, with heart shapes cut out, and a rope swing for Toby, and a promise of some contraption to winch Branston up, if he wanted.