Evelyn didn’t need to hear any more. She slid the bolt across, turned the latch and opened the door. Standing on the doorstep, but at a respectful distance, was the young woman from the other day, the one she had caught staring up at the house. She looked around thirty, Evelyn thought, but was somehow more careworn than she should have been for her age. Fine lines radiated out from her dark eyes and narrow mouth, and her cheekbones protruded severely, although something about her face suggested it was used to being a little more filled out. Her dark hair was cut into a neat, shoulder-length bob that she kept touching as if fearful it would fall out of place. She might have been pretty had she not looked so drawn.

‘Do you have the diary?’ Evelyn said without introduction.

The woman looked a little taken aback at the lack of social niceties, but she nodded obediently, her bottom lip caught between her front teeth. Evelyn assumed the book must be in the cloth bag slung over her shoulder, but her visitor made no effort to remove it and hand it over.

‘Can I come in, please?’ the woman asked. ‘I would love to talk to you for a moment.’

‘What about?’ asked Evelyn, her hand still outstretched to receive the diary.

The woman tucked a piece of flyaway hair behind her ear and shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘Are you Evelyn Mountcastle, the actress?’ she asked.

For a second, something in Evelyn’s heart soared. Evelyn Mountcastle, the actress. The mere words evoked in her a nostalgia so strong that the corners of her mouth turned up a little. She fought to push them back down.

‘I am,’ she replied grandly.

The woman smiled then, her entire face lighting up so that instantly she looked younger and less ravaged.

‘My mother told me you were,’ she said. ‘I gather you were quite famous.’

Evelyn shrugged. ‘I had my moment,’ she replied. ‘Although that’s all in the past now. I don’t act any more.’

‘Why not?’ asked the woman.

It was such a direct question that Evelyn was at first taken aback by it and then intrigued by the questioner. ‘The opportunities just never presented themselves,’ she said.

The woman nodded as if considering this, but still made no effort to hand over the diary. She was bold, Evelyn would give her that. Well, two could play at that game.

‘And you? You work in a charity shop, you say.’