The following day and the one after that, Tilly worked with Luke on the cliff path. The second evening was a slide night and they ate their warmed-over dinner – a surprisingly good tuna bake of Sophie’s making – at the camp.

‘You can do the intro this evening,’ Luke said. ‘I’ve been taping birdcalls so we’ll make it a bit different tonight. Show the slide, then play the call. Then, if enough people turn up, we might try a quiz at the end. Play the calls again and see how many they can recognise. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tilly said dubiously. ‘I’ve never done any public speaking. What do I say?’

‘Whatever you can think of. Birds are great, birds are wonderful, great variety, they come in all sizes – you know, that sort of stuff. I meant, is the quiz a good idea? I don’t want to bore them.’

‘It can’t hurt. And nobody makes them turn up, so they must be interested.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, visibly cheered.

Tilly made a discovery. ‘You’re nervous, Luke! Remind me – how many times have you done this?’

He pulled a face. ‘The slides and the talk are fine. I just wondered about the quiz thing, that’s all. I always hated it at school, you know. Being singled out and put on the spot by the teacher.’

‘Yes, well, you are the teacher now. There’ll be kids – ask them first. They love attention.’

‘Okay. And if nobody else answers, you can. Deal?’

‘Deal,’ Tilly agreed, collecting their dinner dishes. ‘It must be about time to get over there and set up.’

The evening went well with plenty of interaction from their audience, at least half of whom lingered on to talk afterwards. Tilly, packing the slides carefully into their boxes, jumped when Connor spoke at her shoulder. She hadn’t known he was present; it was too dark to see beyond the single cone of light angled away from the screen, by which they’d operated.

‘Evening, Tilly. I didn’t expect to see you here.’

‘Oh.’ She was flustered, suspicion warring with her liking for him, making her words sound offhand. ‘No big mystery there. You know I’ve changed jobs. I’m a trainee now and keeping the tourists busy is all part of it.’ Why, she wondered wildly, had she said ‘mystery’? She might as well have told him to his face that she suspected . . . She was being ridiculous. Abruptly she asked, ‘So, what have you been up to?’ The words came out like an accusation.

He shrugged. ‘Just the usual stuff, collating, photographing, collecting. Someday I hope to publish a book on the trees and shrubs of the Top End, which means trips like this are useful for research as well as work. So how are you liking your new job?’