Evelyn tutted loudly. ‘Of course she’s “kosher”, as you so indelicately put it. What do you think she’s going to do? Push me off the pier?’

An expression settled on Nicholas’s face that suggested this was exactly what he was thinking, but he had the good sense to keep his opinions to himself.

Evelyn pulled on her coat. It was a trench coat, the kind that had been quite fashionable some years back, but it now looked a little grubby. In the pocket her fingers found a balled-up silk scarf, which she unravelled with a flick of her wrist. She expected moths to come flying out, but there were none. Lifting the silk to her nose, she breathed in cautiously. The scarf smelled a little musty and faintly of a perfume she used to wear before such things became unimportant to her, but it wasn’t bad. Standing in front of the hallway mirror, she tied it around her head and immediately felt more glamorous. She wasn’t quite Audrey Hepburn, but she didn’t look too unpresentable.

There was a knock on the door. Nicholas went to answer it, but she stopped him in his tracks with a glare.

‘This is my house and I shall answer my own door, thank you very much.’

Nicholas fell back, admonished. Evelyn stepped to the door and opened it wide, without even using the chain. She could feel Nicholas’s irritation at her flagrant breaches of his security protocol, but she didn’t care.

Pip was on the doorstep dressed in her ubiquitous jeans and some sort of baggy top. Evelyn despaired of young people. Where was their sense of style? No one ever seemed to make any effort with their appearance these days, opting instead for comfort, which was all very well but not in the least attractive.

‘Morning,’ said Pip brightly.

Was it Evelyn’s imagination or did she look a little better today? The dark rings around her eyes were still there, but her cheeks looked to have more of a bloom to them.

‘Good morning, Pip,’ replied Evelyn. ‘Have you met my nephew, Nicholas? He seems to think that you wish me ill will.’

Pip looked confused and then horrified as she shook her head vehemently. ‘Mr Mountcastle,’ she began, ‘I can assure you that you have no reason to . . .’

Evelyn put up a hand to stop her. ‘I’ve told him all that,’ she said. ‘So, shall we go? If I don’t return, Nicholas, you may assume that Philippa Rose here has buried me in a sand dune.’

‘I’m just looking out for you,’ said Nicholas in a tone that might have been taken for petulance.

‘And I’m grateful,’ Evelyn called back over her shoulder.