‘You said before that you were close to Reenie,’ Hannah prompted, wanting a distraction while they waited.

‘She’s amazing,’ Charlie replied. ‘Forthright and blunt – sometimes too blunt – but she has a big heart. Knowing that she cares about you, that she’s got your back, is the best feeling.’

‘She sounds wonderful,’ Hannah said, her fear increasing. If anything happened to the three of them on the way back, Porthgolow would never recover.

‘Her determination will get them through this, if nothing else.’ Charlie took Hannah’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Noah will be fine. They all will. Here – look.’

Hannah turned back to the window, and saw that Noah and Daniel had reappeared. Daniel’s hand was wrapped around the arm of a slight woman wearing a bright red raincoat, a rucksack on her back. Hannah squinted; it looked as if the woman was shaking his hand off. There was a moment when the three of them stood outside the house, heads bowed, then the older woman – presumably Reenie – was stepping over the rocks, Daniel and Noah behind. Reenie seemed the most sure-footed of them all, moving easily over the uneven ground.

The second they were safely on the road, Hannah and Charlie flung their arms around each other, Charlie laughing, Hannah’s heart feeling as squeezed as the rest of her. Marmite lifted his head sleepily to see what the fuss was about.

Soon the three of them were back on the bus, Daniel shaking water off his coat, Noah leaning against a table and wiping his face. Reenie lowered her hood and glared at her rescuers.

‘Good Lord, you two,’ she said sharply. ‘What on earth possessed you?’

‘You couldn’t stay there, Reenie.’ Daniel stood up straighter.

‘You don’t even know if the house is going to survive,’ Charlie added, stepping forward and pulling Daniel into a hug.

‘You put them up to this, did you?’ Reenie turned to her. ‘It’s weathered worse storms than this, and these two have just risked their skins. I don’t even know who this young man is!’

‘I’m Noah,’ Noah said. ‘Hi.’

Reenie glared at him, then turned back to Charlie.

‘Why didn’t you pick up the phone? I have a plan for severe weather, and I would have told you that, currently, there is nothing to worry about, but that if you were concerned I would come – by myself – to the hotel, and stay for a few days. You didn’t need to enact a precarious and pointless rescue, and drag this poor Noah into it. Honestly, it was like something out of The A-Team. Gung-ho and crazy.’

Hannah bit her lip. She felt as if she was being told off, even though she wasn’t the object of Reenie’s wrath. Charlie’s cheeks were pink, and Daniel’s gaze was fixed on the floor.

‘At least we’re all safe now,’ Noah said.

‘More by luck than judgement,’ Reenie replied. ‘You looked like blundering elephants clambering over those rocks. What would have happened if you’d been swept into the sea? I was much safer coming on my own.’