‘Well then, you might as well leave it to me. We’re going to have lunch, as it happens. And to see a man about a dog.’

Helen asked no more questions. Instead she sat back in her seat and let the wind blow away everything but the immediacy of this extraordinary morning. When she closed her eyes, the sunlight and the shade from the trees flashing past dappled patterns through her eyelids. When she opened them again there was the long, black car bonnet in front of her, the outskirts of the city dropping away, and Oliver beside her. He drove negligently, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the polished wooden knob of the gear lever. They sliced in and out of the traffic on the busy road and then, suddenly, they were in the open country. Helen felt the acceleration pressing her back into her seat as the car surged forward. The shadows swept over her face, faster and faster, and the wind whipped her hair back.

Oliver glanced at her, sidelong. If Helen had known him better she might have recognised the small, secret smile with which he always congratulated himself on getting his own way. When she looked round at him again the smile had vanished and he asked, casually, ‘Warm enough? My coat’s in the back if you need something to put over your knees.’ It was the brown leather aviator’s coat which he had been wearing the other evening. Helen instinctively pulled her own well-worn duffel coat more tightly around her.

‘I’m fine. Thanks.’

The car swept on. They were in the Cotswolds now, driving through villages built of honey-coloured stone and past winter-ready fields showing countless shades of brown and ochre.

‘It’s a beautiful day,’ Oliver said, stretching back in his seat and bracing his arms straight against the wheel. ‘Better than mouldering with all that lot in some library?’ He jerked his head backwards at the pile of books behind them.