Isaac paced around what he still thought of as the spare room, listening to the international ringing tone. It rang six times and then Lily picked up. Relief flooded through him. ‘Lily! Are you OK?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said composedly. ‘Well …’ Then she gave him a long story about her confessing to Tubb and Garrick after all and it not going well.

Isaac listened between making sympathetic comments, his heart going out to her as the story unravelled but feeling as if there was a lot more going on behind her carefully toneless delivery than she was giving away.

‘So I’m feeling a bit sad but I’ll get over it,’ she ended. Without giving him a chance to speak she rushed on. ‘I was just wondering when you’ll want Doggo back.’

Evidently she was intending to control the conversation but Isaac was intent on bringing out what he wanted to. ‘You know I had no alternative but to run off the way I did, don’t you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she replied lightly. ‘But now we need to think about what happens once I get home. Do you want Doggo in Peterborough with you? I expect you do. Hayley will want to see him again too.’

Her tone was chatty, as if they were back to being just work colleagues. He felt anger flick at him. Their incredible night together was less than forty-eight hours ago and she was talking to him as if it hadn’t happened. ‘I know I’m hardly in a position to advance our relationship right now—’

‘I understand,’ she said quickly.

In his other ear he heard Hayley’s phone ring and her voice answering. In his throat the words ‘but things will change’ dried. He wasn’t sleeping with Hayley but, unavoidably, he had to be in the bathroom holding her drain bag – the ‘bag of goo’ as she called it – while she washed. She’d turn her back to him but she was naked and he was right there. It brought her close to tears but she’d had to accept his help. It was an intimacy that made it feel odd to make plans with Lily.

‘We could arrange to pass him over on Tuesday,’ Lily said now in his ear.

‘Doggo?’ he replied. ‘I have to take Hayley for her drain and dressing check but—’

She broke in, still in that light, bright tone. ‘I expect you’re working things out as you go along. I’m happy to keep him for a few days. Why don’t you get in touch with me when you can have him back?’ The tiniest of pauses and then she rushed on, ‘Sorry, I’ve got a call waiting. Give Hayley my best wishes.’ Then she was gone.