Though Carole didn’t know how to respond to this gnomic utterance, fortunately Bill continued without prompting. ‘I feel as if everything’s under threat.’

‘You mean someone’s threatening you?’

‘You could say that.’ He seemed to realize that they had strayed outside the normal parameters of their relationship. ‘Sorry, you don’t want to hear all this.’

‘No, I’m interested,’ said Carole, something of an understatement. Then she came up with a line she had probably never used before, but which would have made Jude proud of her. ‘Sometimes it’s better if you talk about things.’

Bill Shefford grinned wryly. ‘And sometimes it’s better if you keep your trap shut. No point in burdening other people with your problems. Though, on the other hand …’

He ground to a halt. Carole quickly posed to herself the what-would-Jude-do-in-these-circumstances question. And came up with the answer: nothing.

Her silence was rewarded by a slight shift in the expression on Bill’s face. He fixed his gaze on her. His eyes, she noticed for the first time, were a surprising, almost innocent, blue.

‘Sometimes in life,’ he began slowly, ‘you get into a position where there’s nothing you can do that isn’t going to hurt someone. There’s a decision you have to take and, though you know some people will be very happy with what you’ve decided, some other people are going to be absolutely devastated.’

‘And that’s the position you’re in at the moment?’

He nodded pensively. ‘So, it’s a kind of balancing act. A profit-and-loss account, if you like. Is the happiness I’m going to bring to one lot of people worth the pain I’m going to bring to the other lot? Not easy.’

‘No,’ Carole agreed very softly, afraid to break the fragile atmosphere of his confessional mood.

‘And also,’ he went on, ‘you never know how people are going to react, do you?’

Another scarcely breathed, ‘No.’

‘If you upset someone, what lengths will they go to … to be revenged?’

Silence again. Carole wasn’t certain what Bill was referring to, but her mind was teeming with possibilities. Was he talking about the fate of Shefford’s Garage, whether he should pass it on to Billy, as everyone expected? Or did he have plans to sell the site? It was a significant lump of real estate in Fethering, with space for a surprising number of new dwellings to be built on it. Yes, there might be an initial problem with organizing change of use, but the local planning authorities were very biddable when there was a prospect of more residential property becoming available.

‘And when you have thoughts like that,’ he continued finally, ‘you can feel very vulnerable …’