‘Here,’ he said, bending to pick up another. ‘You try.’ He took her hand in his own, shaping her fingers around the shell. ‘Now lean down slightly to one side and flick your wrist so that the flat side of the shell hits the water.’

Esther tried to do as he told her, but the shell merely plopped into the sea and disappeared.

‘Look, I’ll show you again. Like this . . .’

He made her practise until she could get the shell to skim the surface of the water a couple of times before sinking.

‘There you are,’ he said jubilantly, ‘now you can play ducks and drakes as good as the rest of us. Come on, now I’ll show you the Point where I live.’

They walked back along the Spit and retraced their steps across the marsh coming out into the lane once more, but nearer the Point than Brumbys’ Farm. This line of dunes – formed many years before and now with trees and bushes well established – curved and formed a solid bank over which the road had been forced to rise.

‘We call this the Hump.’ Matthew grinned. ‘Poor old Will Benson always has a job getting his cart up here. Some days in winter, if it’s slithery, he dun’t make it and the women from the Point have to traipse across here to meet him when he blows his whistle.’

They stood together on the top of the bank and Esther let her gaze take in the view in front of her. Matthew pointed to a building only a few yards to the left below the rise of ground on which they were standing.

‘That’s the pub – the Seagull. That’s where us fellers all get drunk on a Saturday night.’

‘I can imagine!’ Esther said drily, but Matthew merely grinned again and swung his pointing finger round slightly.

‘And that’s where I live, in them cottages.’ A stretch of grass in front of the row of cottages sloped gently down towards the river bank. ‘The Harrises live in the far end one with all their brood – seven kids there were at the last count,’ Matthew went on.

Her mouth tightened. Same number as her aunt’s large family. If Mrs Harris was anything like her Aunt Hannah, then Esther had no wish to meet her.

‘I live in the next one,’ Matthew continued. ‘Then Beth Hanley lives next door to that with her dad. He’s the coastguard and has a look-out station built on the East Dunes. Last cottage this end nearest to us is empty at the moment.’

Esther’s glance travelled around until her gaze rested upon the twisting river to their right.

‘Whatever’s that?’ she asked. A boat – a large, black hulk – was set up out of the water close to the river bank on poles and wooden sleepers.

‘What’s what? Oh, that boat, you mean? That’s where Robert Eland lives.’