When Eddie had run out of things to question, Pearly went through to Anne’s office, leaving the door open because of the heat. Kylie would hear everything they said, but they were okay with that. There were just the three of them in the business and no secrets. When Pearly had started in real estate there were many individual family and partnership concerns, but most had since come under the banner of one or other of the big national franchises. Pearly preferred independence. He had a history and a following in the town, and bringing in Anne had strengthened the connection with the increasing number of women clients. And she was skilled in the use of computers, which Pearly used but for which he felt no affection and displayed no aptitude. She had set up an excellent website, more attractive and easier to negotiate than those of their competitors. Pearly could recognise talent, and the advantage in being associated with it. He’d suggested changing the firm’s name to Gates and May, but Anne was content with the financial benefits of partnership. ‘It’s been the same for so long,’ she’d said. ‘It’s a brand now, so why change? It’s reassuring for people.’

Anne was one of those women who never seem to outgrow an essentially primary-school appearance, no matter what skills, or position, they have acquired, what age reached, what mode of dress adopted. Her face was round and ingenuous, her eyes large with startling blue irises, her hands and feet small, her manner open and buoyant. If, when walking, she were to give a skip, or begin reciting a nursery rhyme, no one would think it inappropriate.

‘I’ve put off a couple of viewings,’ Pearly told her. ‘It’s this wind.’ Both of them looked past Kylie to the small carpark, where the last white and blue agapanthus flowers tossed and twisted on their stalks.

‘How was the show?’ she asked.

‘They’ll come out of it very well financially, I think. A lot of people and the weather was great. Some kid fell on his head from the big wheel, but not from the top and he’s okay now. He’ll be a hero at school. How did the open days go?’

‘Forty-odd at the Terrace, twenty-two at Miles Street. The Terrace will sell no trouble. The other one will have to come down thirty thousand or so, I reckon.’ Despite her appearance, Anne was shrewd and capable, accustomed to taking advantage of her own apparent guilelessness without resorting to dishonesty. They made a good team as she complemented Pearly’s somewhat traditional, and somewhat cynical, professionalism.

‘And Miles Street’s in the shadow of the hill,’ said Pearly. ‘We need to move that house before autumn. No one will buy it in the winter.’