‘I’m just a horsebreaker.’

‘Ronnie says you heal.’

‘Does she now?’

‘Only I have this thing. With my hands. They get hot and stuff, you know.’ She turned back, holding them out like a child showing she’d washed them.

‘I know.’ It wasn’t unusual. His own use of therapeutic hands – a skill that ran in the O’Brien family, useful for de-stressing horses, easing strains and sprains – was no great magic.

‘Thing is, not trying to sound weird or nothing but,’ she scrunched up her face, ‘they feel a bit odd right now. Better I show you.’ She set down the teaspoon she was holding, wiped her fingers on a grubby tea towel and walked up to him, reaching out to take his hands in hers, gold and diamonds glinting on her ring finger.

A hot brand welted his palms. It was as though she’d had them pressed to the scalding kettle.

‘What’s all that about, then?’ she asked matter-of-factly.

Her gaze was earnest, wide eyes a milky grey with smudged mascara and dark bags beneath them. He studied them curiously as the hands burned into his. It was a while before he realised he was holding his breath.

He blew out, forcing a smile. ‘Are they feeling any cooler?’

‘No different. I’m having a well-weird day, me. Must be the magic working.’

‘It’s not magic.’ He wanted to let go because it hurt, but knew she needed reassuring. ‘Nobody knows quite what it is – like divining. It just is. Controlling it’s harder.’

‘Are your hands hot too?’ She laughed, nervously.

‘They are now.’ Her wedding band was hard beneath the fingers of his right one.

She made to laugh again then stopped uncertainly, and for the briefest moment he saw in through the practical, sardonic front. Immediately, his own hands were pure electric.

She looked at them in surprise, feeling it too. ‘What’s that?’

‘Therapeutic touch.’

‘Wow. That’s ’mazing.’ She looked up at him, eyes widening, black pupils flooding the clock hands.

And from nowhere, inconvenient as hell, and with such a punch it penetrated twenty hours without sleep, Luca felt a familiar pull of attraction. It was a Pavlovian reaction he was trying hard to kick. For some men it was stockings and garters, others a stud in a pierced pink tongue, but for Luca it was a wedding ring. Like a spaniel trained to find drugs in an airport, he could sense out an unhappy marriage.

‘Mum, why are you doing that with that man?’

She let go abruptly, returning to the coffee-making, rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘It’s a horse thing, Ellis.’

Luca found himself faced by three feet of outraged child brandishing a feather duster.

‘It’s my ’Splorer Stick,’ the boy announced. ‘It has super powers, my dad says. He was a soldier and killed lots of bad people. He has big muscles.’

‘Nicely to the point,’ he breathed, smiling. ‘Ellis is a cool name, so it is.’

‘My dad’s called Ash, like the Pokémon trainer. What’s your favourite Pokémon? Mine’s Pikachu.’