‘Don’t worry. She’s come to terms with it. Manages to keep pretty cheerful … most of the time. I’ve told her about you, you know, how kind you were to me when I was lost in Allinstore. Gwyneth said you sounded an interesting person. You must meet her.’

‘Yes, I’d like to,’ Carole lied. Meeting any new people always triggered anxiety in her. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know any more about Adrian’s circumstances than the kind of stuff they talked about over coffee. She would like to keep theirs a hermetically sealed, Starbucks-only relationship.

‘Incidentally, I gather you had the dubious distinction of witnessing the death that everyone in Fethering is talking about …?’

‘I didn’t actually witness it. I was at the garage when it happened.’

‘Very sad.’

‘Yes … Oh, by the way, did you get to go to Shefford’s? When we were last here, you were asking me to recommend a local garage.’

‘I did, yes. Met Bill. And his son. Didn’t get his name.’

‘Billy.’

‘Oh, that must’ve been confusing for them when they lived in the same house. Letters and stuff getting mixed up.’

‘I always think it’s odd when fathers and sons are given the same name. It seems only to happen right at the top, in the aristocracy where they want to keep family traditions going and, er … lower down the social scale, where presumably they haven’t the imagination to come up with anything different.’ Carole was aware that she had incautiously let her snobbish prejudices show for a moment there. Bit rash, with someone she didn’t know well.

But Adrian Greenford’s chuckle suggested that he hadn’t been offended. Well, he was Northern, so perhaps his standards were more lax. ‘I also met Bill’s wife. She was there. Stunning-looking woman.’

‘Malee.’

‘Yes. Did you know – that means “flower” in Thai?’

‘Did she tell you that?’

‘Good heavens, no. Just something I picked up somewhere.’

‘She’s Bill’s second wife,’ Carole explained.

‘I pieced that together,’ he said, with an edge of irony. ‘I hardly imagined that the sylph-like Malee had produced that red-headed hunk Billy. Rather younger than him, for one thing. And call me old-fashioned, but I thought the tradition was that mothers were older than their sons.’

‘Yes, of course, Adrian. Silly of me.’

‘That’s certainly how it happens in the North. But of course it may be different down here.’

To her surprise, Carole found herself grinning. ‘No, no, it’s the same.’

‘Do you believe in the great North/South divide, Carole?’

‘Good heavens, no,’ she lied. ‘People are people everywhere.’ Which was a most un-Carole-Seddon-like thing to say.

Adrian chuckled, then his face grew more serious. ‘Rather a strange feeling, though … Bill Shefford. You know, I meet this chap at the garage. Couple of days later, I hear he’s dead.’

‘I still feel rather shocked by it.’