Riley, sensing something wasn’t right, bounced up between them, paws on her jeans, driving his nose into her thigh, barking furiously. It was what he sometimes did when she and Devan kissed.

Forced to let her go, Jared actually laughed. ‘Guardian of your virtue,’ he said, rubbing the dog’s head affectionately.

Coat under her arm as she clipped on Riley’s lead, Connie straightened and roughly pushed him aside.

‘Don’t go,’ she heard him call, as she yanked up the stiff iron latch and ran down the wet path to the gate, dragging the dog behind her. It was late and raining hard. No one was about at this hour. Without looking back, she crossed the road and reached the corner that led into the arcade, only letting out her breath when she knew she could no longer be seen from Jared’s cottage.

Closing her own front door with relief, she let Riley loose and leaned against the wall in the dark hall, burying her face in her hands. She wasn’t crying. She was too furious to cry. Good job, Connie McCabe. Bloody great job. You’ve just made a bad thing a whole heap worse, you stupid woman. She should never have gone.

21

Neil and Brooks adored fireworks, Connie loathed them, and Devan was ambivalent. But they always attended their friends’ bonfire party, it being a three-line whip. Neil was simply unable to fathom why anyone would not enjoy such a life-enhancing spectacle. Every November, regular as clockwork, he would start on at her. ‘You really need to get in touch with your inner child, Con.’

To which she annually retorted, ‘I have. My inner child really hates fireworks, Neil.’

Now she and Devan were driving the dark lanes to Neil’s house in the next village. Connie was dressed in so many layers that she felt as if she’d been mummified. But it was unseasonably cold, temperatures hovering around two degrees. On her feet she had an old pair of moon boots, found at the back of Caitlin’s cupboard from a school ski trip – lilac, glittery, furry, with tiny images of Disney princesses, quite hideous. But at least numb toes were not going to be her problem tonight.

Devan glanced at her, chuckling as he drove. ‘Were there any clothes left in the wardrobe?’

‘You can tease all you like,’ she replied, ‘but when you’ve been standing on that windy terrace for three hours, no sensation from the knees down, your nose turning black and snapping off into your mulled wine, you’ll regret your decision to choose style over substance – even if it is Barbour, even if you do always feel the need to compete with Brooks.’ Which was a hiding to nothing, anyway. Neil’s husband, a retired Barclays’ executive, always dressed in immaculate Italian chic and had the honed, broad-shouldered physique of an athlete.