Until the whole restaurant stopped in silence and looked up at him with shared curiosity and disapproval. And while everything in him wanted to turn around and stalk back to the estate, he didn’t. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

A small, round-cheeked woman he didn’t recognize showed him to a table nearest the counter, affording him a glimpse of the brightly lit kitchen contrasting against the soft dimly lit tones of the restaurant. But if he hoped to be handed a menu to hide in, it had been in vain.

Kate, as she introduced herself, explained that she’d just needed to check with the chef about what was left available from the day’s menu. Wanting to get their tortuous exchange done as quickly as possible to remove any further interest of the other dinners, he told her he’d have whatever was available. He caught the flash of a young teen, dressed in a white shirt and dark skirt, trying, and failing, to hide the fact she was staring at him. She wasn’t the only one.

Left alone at his table, he cast a look around at the other diners, meeting their gazes head on and, one by one, they each returned to their companions. Mrs Whittaker in the corner – also alone – glared at him.

Inexplicably a vision of tiny Father Christmases flooded his memory and he had to stifle a laugh as he remembered once stealing away all the little gnomes Mrs Whittaker dotted about her front garden with such pride and replacing them with the little lit Christmas figurines. It probably hadn’t helped that it was the middle of summer. And by the look on her face as she held his gaze now, red-cheeked and wide-eyed with outrage, he was pretty sure she was remembering it too.

He’d copped to the accusation of theft, but drawn a line at assault and battery, and even PC Ellis had had a hard time keeping a straight face as Mrs Whittaker had argued that her gnomes had just as much right to exist without ‘molestation’ as any human being.

He was drawn back to the present as Mrs Whittaker pushed back from her table with a huff, and marched towards the counter to pay, which had clearly necessitated an imperious glance down her nose at him.

He might have found it funny, if he wasn’t already aware that he was very much the focus of almost everyone in the restaurant, again. The way their conversations dipped, each person huddling closer to their partner, as if it wasn’t patently obvious that he was the subject matter.

Blake, the accident, his wayward teen years, he assumed all were under discussion.

He really shouldn’t have come here.