‘I told you, it’s this flu thing.’

‘No it’s not.’ He smacked his lips in thought, making her jump. ‘I think you’ve left old Och Aye the Noo at last.’

‘Whoa! Where did that come from?’

‘Deny it.’

‘It’s none of your business.’ She pulled the saddle off the cob’s back, turning to glare at him and then regretting it. She tried not to blink. How could Bay know? It had to be her mother, spilling home truths after he’d interrupted their awkward confessional. ‘For God’s sake, don’t tell anyone.’

Catching a flash of amused white smile in the stable’s darkness, Pax realised she’d just given herself away. Had it just been an educated guess? Bay had been there at her grandfather’s funeral, after all, when Pax could barely bring herself to be in the same room as Mack, shuddering with revulsion every time he introduced himself to an old family friend as ‘Patricia’s better half’, or picked fights with her because she refused to guestimate the value of her grandfather’s estate. She’d been quietly drunk that day too, their terse war of words in the car home starting the moment they’d reached for their seat belts.

‘You always were braver than me.’ Bay’s face was in shadow, framed in the open door, his hunt coat identical to the one of her father’s she’d found in the attic wardrobe the previous afternoon. ‘Good luck, beautiful girl.’

For a moment, fourteen years of rattling through life in the wrong direction rolled back, the sadness overwhelming. Pax wanted to bury her face in those blue lapels and weep.

She needed him gone.

‘I’ll see you off, shall I?’ She threw the saddle over the door and hurried past him, a lump in her throat as big as the cob’s salt lick.

Back at the Trooper, Bay was all smiles and solicitude again, pausing with his gloved fingers on the door handle to loudly offer the Fosse and Wolds’ formal best wishes for Lester’s speedy recovery, glancing inside to check the others were still on their phones before adding a whispered postscript, ‘Let’s have lunch.’

‘Why?’ She couldn’t look higher than his nose. Not so brave now.

‘You look like you need a decent meal.’ His mouth – the first she had ever kissed – stopped smiling. ‘I’ll call later.’

‘You don’t have my number.’

‘Actually, I do.’ He turned and climbed inside. ‘I’ve made it into my screen saver, look.’ He held up a photograph of a familiar-looking kitchen wall. With a wave and a roar of diesel engine, he was gone, trailer rattling.

‘Arrogant bastard,’ Pax muttered to make herself feel better. She’d forgotten her mobile number was still Sharpied in extra-large letters on the tiles close to the ancient landline phone, along with those of other family members, neighbouring landowners, the vet, plumber and Ladbrokes, all of whom her grandfather had called regularly to shout at. Let him call, she thought with satisfaction. It would ring in a bin somewhere between here and the M42.