‘Oh, if you don’t come I don’t think I’ll go either. It’s only a war film. I’m not that bothered about it. Besides, it’ll come again sometime.’

Ella giggled. ‘Janice won’t like that,’ she murmured.

‘Eh?’ Rob looked startled. ‘What you on about? The film, d’ya mean?’

‘No, Bumpkin. The fact that you’re not going. Janice has a “thing” about you.’

He stared at her. ‘Janice? Don’t be daft.’

Her grin widened. ‘I’m not. Ever since we were ten, when I first came here.’

‘Oh, come off it. At ten? Why, I wasn’t giving girls a thought, then.’

‘Oh, I know that!’ She put her head on one side. ‘Changed a bit now, though, eh?’

He had the grace to look sheepish.

‘I’ve always had the feeling,’ Ella went on slowly, ‘that Janice only befriended me at the start to get closer to you.’ She frowned, a half-forgotten memory nudging at her mind. ‘I seem to remember her saying something about our families being related. I didn’t take a lot of notice at the time. I was too upset about Mum and having to come and live here. I did ask Gran once, but I got my head snapped off – as usual!’ Ella lifted her head and looked at him. ‘Do you know anything about it?’

‘Me?’ He looked startled. ‘Why should I know? The old ’uns don’t tell us much about owt that went on, d’they now?’

‘Worse than that,’ Ella said wryly. ‘They shut up like a clam when you ask them anything.’

‘Well, you’re such a nosey little blighter. Can you blame them?’ Then he paused and frowned more thoughtfully. ‘You know, now you mention it, there was something that, well, bothered me for a while . . .’

‘What?’

‘It was when I first saw your mam and my dad together. They seemed – well – very friendly. Too friendly.’

Ella gaped at him. Such a thing had never entered her mind. From childhood she had seen the affection between her mother and Uncle Danny every time he had visited them in Lincoln and she had accepted it as being perfectly natural.

The idea that there was anything wrong in it had never entered her head.

‘Mind you,’ Rob was saying, ‘Me mam didn’t seem to bother, so I just thought it must be okay. And then, of course . . .’ He left the words unspoken, for they both remembered that only a few days later, Kate had been drowned.

Ella said slowly, ‘Your dad was dreadfully upset at her funeral though, wasn’t he?’

Rob nodded and his troubled brown gaze met her candid blue eyes.

‘I wonder . . . ?’ she murmured.

‘What?’ he prompted.

‘If your grandma would tell us?’