‘We’ll not introduce you to our neighbours here and we’ll put your car in our garage straight away. I don’t think the other people in the street are home from work yet. No, you stay there, Stacy. Your mother and I will swap the cars around. Give me your car keys.’

She fumbled in her handbag. ‘Is this necessary? After all, he doesn’t live near here.’

‘You can’t be too careful.’

That night the dog across the road suddenly started barking furiously and when Stacy peeped carefully out of the window, she saw the neighbour come out into his garden.

Her father spoke from the doorway and she jumped in shock.

‘I thought that would’ve woken you,’ he said. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you while you’re here, love.’

‘Thanks. Does the dog bark a lot?’

He hesitated. ‘Mick was burgled last year. He’s trained that dog to bark if there are prowlers. Don’t go outside or even draw the curtains back! If it’s Darren, he’ll not know for certain that you’re here.’

He went out to join the neighbour and they let the dog off the lead. It ran off up the street and there was more furious barking and a man’s voice shouting, followed by a car starting up round the corner. The neighbour ran to try to see its number plate, but he was too late.

‘Mick thinks it was a red car,’ Stacy’s father said when he came back a few moments later.

‘Did the neighbour see this intruder well enough to describe him?’

‘A man, he said, tall and thin. So it could have been Darren.’

‘How did he find me so quickly?’ Stacy whispered.

‘It’s probably our fault,’ her mother said. ‘We didn’t think to keep our new address secret from our friends or our old neighbours, because we didn’t know how bad things were for you. He could have got it from any of them.’

‘You shouldn’t have to keep things secret. You’ll be needing to advertise your B&B soon and word of mouth from friends is important.’

‘We won’t need to advertise our B&B until the extensions are finished and Darren may have been caught harassing you by then. Or he may even have given up on you.’

She didn’t think he would and from his next words, nor did her father.

‘We can’t be too careful.’

‘Surely Darren won’t come back tomorrow as well? Not after being chased away tonight.’

‘Who knows? Just a precaution.’ Her father looked at her solemnly. ‘I’ve made friends with a guy near here who’s an ex-policeman and I’m going to pick his brain.’

‘He may think I’m exaggerating.’

‘Not if I tell him you’re a sensible lass.’

‘Am I? I married Darren, after all, and let him boss me around and treat me like a doormat.’

‘We all make mistakes and we thought he was a nice enough guy, even though he wasn’t our sort of person.’

The following evening her father sat beside her on the sofa after tea. ‘Look, I’ve been speaking to my friend. When he heard how tenacious Darren’s been, he said we should take this very seriously indeed.’