‘We’re all the type, now that everyone has cameras on their phones,’ said Georgie.

‘True. I’d be interested to see what the son’s like, as well. He might have a look of Stephen.’

‘He was so lovely-looking, wasn’t he?’ said Georgie wistfully, but her sister had turned to load plates into the dishwasher and didn’t seem to have heard her.

Hazel had agreed to come over to the house for coffee at 11 a.m. Georgie was going to take her for a stroll around the farm and down to the river before lunch. Dawn wanted to catch up with her emails, so she asked if there was a place she could install herself, out of everyone’s way.

‘Shall we start at the top, work our way down?’ Georgie asked.

She took Hazel up to the orchard. The circular dovecote was crumbling, now. It was another restoration project that Cass and Adam meant to get around to, when they had the spare cash.

‘We all used to come up here and hide out, when we were teenagers,’ said Georgie. ‘I think Stephen was with us, during some of the time. It’s so long ago, I struggle to remember.’

They strolled down through the apple trees, to the back gate of the walled garden.

‘My mother used to grow vegetables here. Lots of things. She was good at gardening. It’s one of the few gifts I got from her. I’ve got a nice little garden in London. It’s a shame, they’ve let it get very run-down.’

‘How come your sister gets to live here?’ asked Hazel. Georgie was taken aback at her directness: she seemed rather a shy woman.

‘She bought me out, after Mum died. I’ve lived in London for so long, I think I’d have struggled here on my own, especially in the winter. But the garden would have looked better than this, if I’d taken it on.’ She smiled.

‘Up at The Grange, the house where the Gales used to live, they’ve got a lot of snowdrops that they reckon William brought back with him, from the Crimea. They open it to the public. It’s quite a display, apparently.’

‘That’s funny, because we’ve always called the field in front of the house the snowdrop field. I’ll take you down there now. I don’t know whether they were here when we came. Perhaps Mum dug them up from her parents’ house and transplanted them.’

‘Maybe they’re the descendants of William Gale’s flowers, too,’ said Hazel.

‘Could be. Keen gardeners are always taking cuttings and dividing plants. I took some bulbs from the field and planted them in my garden in Fulham actually.’

Hazel wondered whether Georgie would offer her some of the bulbs, as Penelope Eyres had, but the thought didn’t seem to cross her mind.