‘It was a birthday party,’ Cara tells her. ‘Jack Hannaford. He’s one of Max’s friends. They go sailing together. He’s interesting. Gave up a teaching career to go self-employed as a decorator. He brought me over to see The Magic Flute and Der Rosenkavalier at Dartington. His daughter’s about Sam’s age, Amy. She works with him but she’s spreading her wings a bit, from what I can gather. Starting to source things for clients, that sort of thing. Beginning to be a bit of an interior designer.’

Fliss smiles. ‘Perhaps that’s why Sam enjoyed himself so much. He’s been a bit quiet lately, a bit introspective. Perhaps Amy is helping him out of it.’

‘They seem to get along very well together,’ Cara says. ‘I think you’d like her a lot, but I wouldn’t want to say that it’s anything more than friendship.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ says Fliss.

They walk for a while in companionable silence, heads bent against the wind and the little splatters of rain. Ahead of them, Jolyon and Sam turn and start back towards them.

‘It’s going to start chucking it down in a minute,’ Jolyon shouts, gesturing at the banks of clouds massing along the horizon. ‘Time to go home.’

Cara is glad to turn her back to the wind and be almost carried down the hill. When they get back, the fire has been lit in the hall and Hal is sitting on one of the long sofas, reading newspapers, with George at his feet surrounded by toys. Cara guesses that these are family heirlooms: a wind-up jack-in-the-box, some rather battered Dinky cars, an old teddy, his fur rubbed thin with much hugging. Henrietta is sitting on the sofa opposite, the baby asleep beside her. Hal looks up.

‘It must have been chilly out there. I can hear the wind rising,’ he says. ‘Come and get warm.’

They take off their coats and boots and go to sit by the fire. Fliss kneels down beside George, showing him how to wind up the jack-in-the-box. Hal clears a space beside him on the sofa and smiles at Cara.

‘Just as well you’re not going back.’ he says. ‘It’s going to be a stormy old night. Though you might get a bit of a battering up there in the west wing.’

‘There’s something rather nice,’ she says, ‘about listening to really wild weather when you’re tucked up safe and warm inside.’

She sees Sam take his phone from his pocket and glance at it. A smile touches his lips and instinctively she knows that the text is from Amy. He looks up, catches her eye and grins at her.

‘All quiet on the Western Front,’ he says, and she wonders if that means that Amy still hasn’t heard from Cosmo.