He stared at her, maybe wondering if she was serious. ‘OK.’

Connie felt the skirmish was over but was also aware that one cruise was not going to change the world. She genuinely wanted to hug her husband, to love away his detachment. But she could still feel, reprehensibly, the imprint of Jared’s mouth on hers and she knew it would be wrong just now: it would be fraudulent.

There was a knock on the front door.

‘Postman?’ Devan said, getting up.

Connie heard him chatting, then laughing, thanking whoever was at the door.

‘It’s for you,’ he said, dropping a heavy package onto the table and sliding it across to her. She picked it up, puzzled. She hadn’t ordered anything. ‘I’m meeting Bill later,’ he added. ‘He wants to look at a car and I said I’d go with him.’

Bill Kitson was married to Jill, a good friend of Connie’s in the village. He was obsessed with classic cars, frequently buying wrecks, which he then lovingly restored. Jill’s only objection was that he kept them all. There was now a barn on the edge of the village that had upwards of ten: MGs, Sunbeam Alpines, Morris Minors.

‘Count me out for supper.’ Devan grabbed his phone from the table and turned away. ‘We’re going over Oxford way, probably won’t be back till late.’

Connie sat on at the table after Devan had disappeared upstairs to get dressed. She was worried about her husband’s sudden desire to be out socializing all day, after so many months slumped comatose on the sofa. Is it just a desire to avoid me? But she was pleased he seemed more motivated. She stared unseeingly at the package on the table in front of her, her fingers smoothing the cardboard exterior. Then she automatically began to pull at the tab that would release the contents.

Inside was a glossy hardcover, full of illustrations: Carpaccio. She gave a small gasp. There was only one person in the world this could be from. How did he get my address? She felt her heart pounding.

But she was quickly reminded that she and Devan were in the phone book. She thought back to all those questions of Dinah’s, that night by the lake. She didn’t remember specifically mentioning the name of the village they lived in, but she knew she had talked about Somerset and the Levels. It would be a matter of minutes to trace her online, knowing her husband was a doctor.

With shaking hands, Connie examined the paperwork tucked inside the cover of the book. There was no message, no indication of where it came from, only a gift invoice from a French forwarding company called DFB – Connie was familiar with forwarders: Fiona had regularly used them for shipping her products abroad.