He put the bottle down again, grabbed his good wool coat from its hook and walked out.

The tide looked hours from its peak but he checked the board anyway. At nearly three o’clock, the waves were still far away. By six, they would cut across the left half of the beach and join up with the freshwater outflow from the storm drains, a trick that caught out a new crop of surprised visitors every year as they found themselves marooned on a tiny sandbar by two inches of water. They would laugh as they waded their way back to safety, not knowing that if they’d stayed just half an hour longer, they’d be swept away. Why were they so oblivious to the power of the sea? Did they never look at the caves and ask themselves what inexorable strength it took to hollow out those long fingers of space from the weight that loomed above?

The beach hut was out of reach of even the mightiest spring tides. When the waters turned the dunes into a tiny barren island, the beach hut would remain dry. How well they must know this little patch of earth to place their home so unerringly in the one spot where they could live by the sea without being swamped by it. That was the magic they had, of course. Because they knew things others didn’t, they appeared to know more in total. It was a neat trick, swapping such dull knowledge as how to run a home or choose a decent school for an understanding of tides and currents, of sands and safety and earth and water. No wonder Alicia found them so bloody fascinating. He angrily strode on.

He had pictured her in the black swimsuit, making her way back up from the water. But Ava stood on the veranda, her hands wrapped tightly around a steaming coffee mug, thumbs and fingers all bunched together like a child clutching a bowl, and gazing out to sea. A gigantic shapeless jumper was bundled about her upper body. When she saw him approaching, her eyes turned wide and wary; but he thought that perhaps there was a moment when she smiled.

“Alicia’s not here.” She was looking him up and down, perhaps assessing whether he was a threat, perhaps for some other reason.

“She’s been here a lot though.” He didn’t mean to sound combative but he couldn’t help it, it was just the mood he was in today. “I hope she’s not making a nuisance of herself. Disturbing you while you’re so busy.”

“We’re not busy.”

“I thought that brother of yours was supposed to be writing a book.”

“That brother of mine.” The corners of her lips twitched upward.

Inside his pocket, his hand clenched tight.

“It’s finished.”

“How long did it take him?”

“His whole life, on and off. Why?”

Donald sniffed. “That figures.”

Ava took a mouthful of coffee.

“Are you still angry about the other day?” she asked.

“Which other day? The day when you set up home here? The day you took my daughter swimming in some of the most dangerous waters in the county? The day you hoodwinked the Welfare Officer… ”