Thursday was a rerun of Wednesday, at least in the first hour or two. She woke gradually, missing the spaniel, reviewing the day past and the day ahead, and then welcoming the builders on their early arrival. ‘Gotta get upstairs today,’ said Dave. ‘You’ll need to have everything out of the bathroom.’248

‘Already done,’ said Thea.

‘Did you see the kitchen?’ Sid prompted her, his face expectant.

‘Oh – yes. Lovely,’ she did her best to gush. ‘You’ve done it all so quickly. Tabitha’s going to be thrilled.’ She could not bring herself to pretend that a beautiful kitchen did anything to stir her own soul.

‘Bathroom should be done by the end of tomorrow,’ Dave boasted. ‘Provided the doings get delivered as promised. Should be here any time now.’

‘A new bath? And loo?’

‘And the rest,’ Dave nodded. ‘We need to get the old stuff out by dinnertime, and the new vinyl down. All organised on paper.’ He waved a clipboard at her. ‘There’s a plumber coming at two. We can get the shower in with him, first.’

‘You got somewhere to go?’ Sid asked her. Her response to the kitchen had clearly disappointed him, and lowered his expectations of her. She was sorry, but also irritated.

‘Not really. I’ve no idea what I’m going to do, to be honest. What’s the weather like?’ She peered past him to the sky outside. It looked more or less clear.

‘Nice day, they say. Warmer. How about a bit of shopping? Plenty to explore in Cirencester.’

‘It’s a thought. Pity we’re so far from the sea. It’d be nice on a beach, by the sound of it.’ Both men gave helpless shrugs at that. ‘Well, I might play on my computer for a bit. It’s still very early. Do you think I’ll be able to leave on Saturday, then? You’ll have 249done all the indoor stuff by then, won’t you?’

‘Thought you were leaving Friday,’ said Dave. ‘That’s what we were told – get everything done and dusted by end of Friday, because after that there’d be nobody to supervise.’

‘We’ve got another job Monday, anyway,’ said Sid.

‘Right. Just checking.’ The truth was, as the two men doubtless understood as well as she did, that she had not really been needed at all. Builders could get on just as well without supervision – especially ones like these, who clearly had plenty of responsibility and a decent work ethic. The whole exercise had been pointless, or worse. Without her, Grace might still be alive. But Gladwin had meant well. It wasn’t her fault the original purpose of giving Thea some space and time to herself, a little holiday from the demands of her stepchildren, had turned to ashes. Some people might even think that was a kind of divine justice.

The computer researches of the day before had been diverting, she remembered. Right here on the doorstep was a rambling family stretching back three hundred years and more, all meticulously documented and shared amongst descendants across the world. Thea regarded herself as still rather too young for the obsessive delvings that so many people engaged in, at a time of life when they felt their own place on the tree becoming more pivotal. Once you had grandchildren, it seemed, you took the whole business more seriously. And if you were retired, with time on your hands, what better use for it than to burrow through old records and newspaper 250stories, in search of the fullest possible picture of the people who came before? People dead for centuries, who had the exact same ears as yours, and the same peculiar passion for apricots. It made you hopeful for your own great-great-grandchildren, and how they might even one day find you interesting.