Franklin’s shoulders rose and fell in a huge sigh. ‘Look, Carol – OK if I call you Carol?’ She nodded. Better that than a title she didn’t hold and didn’t want. ‘We got off on the wrong foot and I reckon we’re a pair of stubborn bastards who don’t like to back down. How’s about we call a truce? We’re practically neighbours.’ He spread his hands in a generous gesture.

‘Come in,’ she said, sullen rather than welcoming. ‘There’s nowhere to sit.’ The dog followed her as she walked to the middle of the room.

He proved her wrong by perching on a sawhorse. He looked around and she could see him calculating where he was in relation to what had happened here. She couldn’t complain. If anyone had the right to curiosity about what she was doing to the place, it was the cop who had had to confront the bloodbath up on the gallery, where the blood of her brother and his partner had turned the walls and ceiling into a grotesque abstract painting. But he said nothing about the past or the present state of the place. ‘I suppose a cup of tea’s out of the question?’

‘Only when you tell me how you knew I was living here.’

He gave a dry guffaw of laughter that took all the threat out of his heavy brows and sardonic mouth. ‘This is my patch, Carol. And what happened here is notorious for miles around. I knew the day you arrived. There’s not a soul living round here that doesn’t know you’re living in your brother’s office and gutting the place. What they’re all gagging to know is what you’re going to do with it once you’ve stripped it to the bare bones.’

Carol folded her arms and gave him her best hundred-yard stare. ‘What I plan to do here is nobody’s business but mine.’

‘Fair enough. But I answered your question. Now do I get a cup of tea?’

‘My coffee’s better.’ It was a grudging concession.

‘Happen. But I don’t like coffee.’ He thrust his hands in his coat pockets. ‘Oh, go on, Carol, it’ll not kill you.’

She turned on her heel and marched through to her private quarters, Flash at her heels. She didn’t like anyone inside the barn, least of all a man like John Franklin. Behind that bluster and bullshit, there was a tenacious terrier toughness in play. Whatever his reasons for being here, it wasn’t an act of good neighbourliness. Carol hastily made a mug of tea, and brewed some fresh coffee for herself.