Sam smiled at me. He knew how true that was.

‘So, given that I’m a sworn bachelor, if you ever change your mind and decide you want a totally platonic partner on any of these Dream List adventures, give me a shout.’

‘A tempting offer, but that’s not how the Dream List works.’

‘Fair enough. You’ll at least fill me in on how it’s going, though?’

I grinned. ‘It seems I don’t have to. You just keep turning up and finding out for yourself.’

So, that was that. Time to stop fantasising about what could happen between Sam and me once the Dream List was complete.

We chatted for another half an hour or so, as the sun drifted below the treeline. Sam had a dozen questions about my job, and we naturally ended up talking about our families again. When the waiter asked if we’d like to take our (long-finished) drinks out onto the terrace, we took the hint, checked the time and realised that the whole evening had slipped by.

I wasn’t about to argue when Sam offered to drive me home in his bashed-up truck because it meant I got to ride through the balmy July night with my new friend, the moonlight shimmering silver through the window and the radio set to late-night cheese as we sang along, laughing, all the way to Bigley.

14

I was worried about Joan.

A nagging twist in my guts told me something was wrong. More wrong than having a mum who was barely home because she worked gruelling hours just to keep scraping along the poverty line. I knew Joan felt anxious about Leanne being ill and tired all the time. I could see that she was lonely, but I was starting to wonder where the boundary lay between a struggling mum doing her best and emotional neglect.

I’d been relieved when Joan had told me about the movie night. But it hadn’t been enough to undo the knot of tension that pulled tighter in my stomach when I saw the blueberry-coloured shadows under her eyes, or found her staring off into the distance with a haunted expression that did little to hide a childhood full of worry and insecurity.

Saturdays, she usually appeared in the garden as soon as Nesbit went out for his first sniff of the day. The morning after my dinner at Hatherstone Hall, I was on my second mug of tea and there was still no sign of her.

I decided to shower and get dressed and then call round and ask if she wanted to come on a dog walk. Before I made it up the stairs, I spotted a note pushed through the letterbox:

The girl needs checking on. She has been reading the same book for a week.