Now, Leo was back in Manhattan, or with his top-drawer wife up in East Hampton or wherever it was. Chloe Campbell was slowing down before the Oxford bypass, her car loaded with her expensive but not-too-new-looking leather suitcases, piles of crisp empty notebooks and brand new standard texts, and feeling as apprehensive as any sensitive adolescent on the way to a new school. It was too late now. Chloe negotiated the tangled city traffic, and parked the Renault defiantly half on and half off the pavement on Folly Bridge. Only a single window in the old house showed a light.

Chloe hitched her shaggy wolf-pelt jacket closer around her and began to pick her way down the slippery stone steps. Her hair looked as bright as a beacon in the wintry dusk. Before she reached the front door which had barred Helen’s entry, it swung open and Gerry Pole lounged out. His grey sweater was filthy and his lined face was unshaven, but the tattered remnants of a more wholesome romantic youth clung about him. Chloe responded with a brief flicker of interest as Gerry grinned at her.

‘One of Rose’s new tenants, I take it? And very lovely, too. I’m Gerry Pole, by the way, token male on the premises …’

‘Oh, good,’ Chloe said quickly, waving up towards her car perched on the bridge. ‘Perhaps, then, you could possibly give me a hand with my things? So inaccessible, down here.’

‘Delighted.’ Gerry smiled again, showing off the attractive crinkles around his pale blue eyes and revealing uncared-for teeth.

So Chloe made her entrance into Follies House burdened with nothing more than her handbag and her portable typewriter. Gerry obligingly toiled to and fro with the leather cases and set them carefully down in Chloe’s first-floor room. The long windows looked out on almost total blackness now, but the little lamps inside glowed invitingly on panelled walls and solid furniture. Chloe looked around her with approval. The panelling was painted soft bluey-green, like a bird’s egg, and the curtains and faded Persian rugs stood out against it in warm reds and garnets. She laid her typewriter down on the bare desk and switched on the green-shaded library lamp to make a little, welcoming circle of light.

Here, Chloe thought with a sigh of satisfaction, she could work. Books. Peace, calm and no hassles. Perhaps this crazy idea was going to work out after all. A little sound from behind her reminded her that Gerry was still hovering by the door. She shot him a brilliant, dismissive smile.

‘Thanks very much. I expect we’ll be meeting again soon, if you live here too?’

‘Oh yes, certain to,’ Gerry rubbed his dry hands expectantly. ‘I could more than do with a drink now, in fact, after all that lifting. Won’t you join me? I’ve got a little something …’