‘Mrs Harris …’

‘Oh, it’s Faith, please. I’m sorry to disturb you, Madi, but I’ve been worrying about you stuck here all by yourself. You haven’t popped down for that cup of tea, and I thought you might just be a bit … well, shy, I suppose. It’s my day off from work and I’m at a bit of a loose end. Are you busy now?’

She wasn’t, of course, but admitting to that would mean she had no excuse to refuse. ‘Well, I was about to take a walk. Get some air in my lungs while the sun’s still shining.’

‘I could come with you!’

Madi took one look at the little woman’s eager expression and gave in. She nodded. ‘Okay. Why not? Just let me get my coat and scarf.’

Faith Harris waited patiently on the step. At least she wasn’t one of those people who barged their way in, whether invited or not. Madi pulled on her coat and wrapped a thin headscarf around her head as usual, then grabbed her door keys.

Faith nodded towards Prue’s car, standing idle on the drive. ‘Battery’ll go flat,’ she muttered, shaking her head. ‘She should have left me the key, so I could start it up or move it. Sorry it’s stopping you from parking.’

‘No problem. Mine seems fine where it is, in the road.’

‘True enough. It’s not as if we get much traffic going by.’

Madi closed the door and, without discussing any sort of route, they both seemed to turn naturally to the left, walking side by side in the direction of the church and the pub. The bells were ringing again, not especially tunefully, as they had been on the afternoon she’d arrived.

‘That’ll be young Donny,’ Faith said, raising her eyebrows. ‘He’s not very good, is he? That’s why he practises so often I assume, in the hope of getting better.’ She laughed. ‘It could take a while.’

Madi laughed too. ‘Everyone has to start somewhere, I suppose, no matter what it is they’re trying to master. How old is he? This Donny?’

‘Thirteen, I think. Or fourteen. He comes out of school and his mum’s not back from work yet, and there’s time to kill before his tea. Same for a lot of the kids around here. It’s not as if we have much to entertain them. No cinema or bowling alley or anything like that. They get bored, and probably not overly keen to get stuck into their homework!’

‘No youth club?’

‘There used to be, until the man who ran it moved away. It died a death after that. There’s football practice once a week though, for those who are interested, and the school has a chess club on a Tuesday, but the other days young Donny’s up there in the tower, regular as clockwork. After the service on a Sunday too sometimes. He does try hard, poor lad.’

‘And his mum?’

‘Gloria. Works at the estate agency along the way there. Well, she owns it actually. Her and her husband Jim. He does all the viewings and the legal stuff and she takes care of the admin, making appointments, typing up the details of the properties. My Prue usually takes the photos for them. She knows how to bring out the best in a place, especially with the interiors, getting the light right and all that. To be honest, I’m not sure how they’ve stayed in business in a little place like this. It’s not like people move in or out of the village that often, and there’s a lot of competition from the bigger agencies in town, and then there’s the internet …’