A plump cushion dropped onto the floor beside her. She tucked it under her bottom without protest, too weary to be stoical, and watched the flames licking over the kindling and coals on the open fire. This little snug, sequestered at the back of the Victorian semi with a view over the fruit trees and the frog pond, had always been her sanctuary. Her mum had never paid it much mind, allowing Jem’s dad to cram it with mismatched armchairs, antique wooden furniture, multicoloured throw rugs, and old ships he’d half-built from model kits. As there had invariably been more children than bedrooms, Jem had taken to hiding away in here, spending hours with her dad while he read to her, beat her at Monopoly and Go Fish, and repaired the damage wrought by an education in constant flux. Whenever she came home for a visit, it was the first place she checked, if her dad wasn’t in his greenhouse.

“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.

She drew her knees up again and wrapped her arms around them. “There’s not much to say. I did what I could, but it wasn’t enough, and he died.”

“The report said you were on your own out there.”

“Aye, for a while. Then Rosie came, and she helped a load.”

She heard him sip his tea, and the satisfied sigh that followed his first taste of a decent cuppa. His favourite method of contemplation was slow and steady, with a brew in hand.

“Is Rosie one of yours? I don’t recognise her name.” He kept the enquiry light, but there was curiosity simmering below the surface.

“She’s a police officer. We met on a couple of jobs over the weekend, and she took my statement this morning.”

Her dad nudged her bum with his toe. “Your ears are pink.”

“They are not!” She clapped a hand over one, full of righteous indignation until she felt the heat there. “Bloody hell.”

“The cat has scarpered from the bag, Jemima. Elaborate,” he said with uncontained glee. He loved gossip almost as much as he loved growing oversized competition veggies, which, given his impressive trophy cabinet, was saying a lot.

She threw up her hands. “Okay, okay. I like her. She’s funny and pretty, and daft as a brush, and she gave me gloves and half her roast dinner.”

Her dad toe-poked her again. “When’s she coming for tea?”

“She’s not. She promised to cut my hair for me, I promised to pay her in toffee, and that’s all there is to tell. Besides which, I have a date with ‘wear something comfortable’ Sylvie tomorrow.”

“Ah, that’s tomorrow, is it?”

“Yeah.” Jem twisted a tassel on the cushion. “I don’t think anything will come of it, Dad. Nothing ever does.”