‘. . . so I’d been meaning to get the number off Mrs Coleman for an age.’ He bestows a genial wink on me. ‘Then last week I found myself at the realtor’s office and Cathy just happened to mention she had a contact number for Mr Coleman in her documentation, so I said to myself, “Jeff! Seize the moment! Give this man a call!”’ He breaks into a snowy-capped smile. ‘And real glad I am, too, cos if you don’t mind my saying, Mrs Coleman, your husband sounds like a fine fellow.’

‘Who exactly is this guy?’ Robert had demanded on the phone. ‘What’s his business? What does he own in the town?’

‘Why?’ I hedged. Hogan’s most recent contribution to Ague was a large poster outside Prestcott’s which offered visitors a chance to ‘Step back into the Bygone days of the Old West.’ I’d been furious that he’d managed to get hold of Robert behind my back. Furious and deeply apprehensive.

‘Alice,’ Robert said, ‘he offered us a swap!’ And a nasty fibrous knot began to form in my stomach.

I was already in a tailspin of confusion about Temerosa. Now that reality has crashed headlong with my fantasy of the place, I couldn’t see how I could possibly go ahead with plans for a retreat. I couldn’t see how I could ever have come up with such a stupid idea in the first place.

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ Duval had said. ‘The world exists on thousands of different levels and just because some are more tragic than others, it doesn’t make them any more valid. You fall into that way of thinking and you become Nora, so overwhelmed by the world’s suffering, you go mad. Besides, the border has always been a place where crazy ideas flourish and a retreat is nothing if not a crazy idea.’