I was booked for that afternoon, gardening for the vicar. I usually love working in the vicarage garden, surrounded by warm stone walls hanging with old-fashioned roses, clusters of scented Rambling Rector and Himalayan Musk nodding in the breeze. In fact, a couple of hours working in any garden can make me feel better about most things. But dead-heading the roses and staking the delphiniums didn’t work for me that afternoon. Birdsong and bees bumbling amongst the lavender failed to lift my spirits. All I could think about was Nick. When I got home, I parked the van, but didn’t bother going back into the house. I passed the garden gate, walked down the lane and scrambled through the hedge and across the field.

Paul was in his workshop. I called at the caravan first, but it was locked up, so I made my way down to the big corrugated iron shed. The door was standing open. I went inside and stood for a moment surrounded by a jumble of old furniture. I could hear water splashing somewhere, what sounded like a powerful jet or hose. I called Paul’s name and wandered through the shed into an old, attached stone barn. I called again. The sound of the water stopped abruptly and he appeared, coming through a small door, wearing wet gumboots, the trousers of his overalls splashed with wetness, a pair of protective goggles pushed up on his forehead. ‘Juno!’ he cried, smiling. He stripped off a pair of heavy rubber gauntlets and tossed them on a workbench. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.’ His smile faded as he looked at my face. ‘What’s wrong?’

I began to relate what had happened that morning, but he stopped me and made me sit down. He pulled up a stool beside me and listened whilst I poured out what had happened.

‘And you’ve no idea who these men were?’ he asked at last.

‘That’s why I came to you. I thought you might know them. Nick might have mentioned them, or said something …’ I showed him the photograph of Vlad I’d taken on my phone. It was a charming study, his face twisted with malice, caught just at the moment he was drawing his finger across his throat.

‘Never seen him before.’ Paul frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I know some of the dealers he knows, local people, like Tom Smithson and Verbena. But I’ve never come across this pair.’

‘Nick won’t tell me what they want. I’m frightened he’s going to get hurt.’

Paul thought for a moment. ‘Tell you what, Nick and I need to settle up for the things I sold for him at the fair yesterday. I’ll go around tonight, see if I can find out anything. He might open up to me.’

‘Thanks.’ I smiled and he smiled back.