‘Promise you’ll phone me again, Hope.’

‘I promise.’

The line went dead.

He filled in the gaps for Gemma, who had heard only his side of the conversation because he’d felt putting the phone on speaker mode would have given the voices an echo and he hadn’t wanted Hope to be put off by anything.

Gemma stared down at the rug, then looked across at him. ‘It sounds as if she’s had a tough life.’

‘Yes. It does.’

‘I wonder what her daughter’s like, this Janey.’

‘I’m praying we’ll get the chance to find out.’

‘She must have had a tough life, too, if her mother has. I’m glad Hope promised to ring again, Dad.’

‘She wouldn’t give me her phone number, though, would she? And it’s a hidden number. The poor woman is clearly still in a delicate state of mind and cries easily. Damn this Lionel fellow to high hell! I’d like to give him a good thumping.’

And damn Judith for keeping the original situation from him. But he managed not to say that to Judith’s grieving daughter.

‘We’ll have to wait and find out if Hope will keep her word,’ he said at last.

Gemma nodded and picked up her book, but he noticed she didn’t turn many pages and did a lot of staring into space.

He couldn’t concentrate on anything, either.

Chapter Nineteen

Elise used the picker-up gadget to get the letters that had fallen through the front door mail flap. She still used it rather than risk bending right down without anything to hold on to. That fall had certainly weakened her confidence in her ability to navigate the world.

She took the post through into the kitchen and spread it out on the table. More offers to sell her house: ‘Buyers waiting’. Ha! She’d insisted on having the ‘For sale’ sign taken down but they could have rung her estate agent and found that the house had already been sold and not wasted their paper and her time. Fools! Heaven help anyone who put their most valuable possession into such hands. She tossed the junk into the rubbish bin.

That left one letter. It looked official and when she turned it over, she gasped at the sender’s name: Sexton Bassett Arts and Crafts Village. She hadn’t expected to get a reply so quickly.

She stood holding it, not in a hurry to see the rejection it no doubt contained, because she’d been allowing herself a tiny strand of hope. Then she got angry with herself and tore the envelope open so roughly she ripped a corner off the letter and had to hold it in place to read the final phrases.

Dear Ms Carlton,

Thank you for your application for a tenancy at our Arts and Crafts Village.

Without committing ourselves to anything, we’d like to move to the next stage with you.

We’d be very interested to meet you and I’m sure you’ll want to see the village – though it’s really only a street. Would it be possible for you to come to Sexton Bassett so that we can get to know one another a little better?