‘But we’d make it work, you and I. No matter what.’

‘Maybe.’ Miranda’s eyes were on the darkness of the road. ‘But I wouldn’t be running to Heathrow for the next flight to Dhaka.’

‘No.’

‘There’s something so primitive about the whole thing,’ Miranda said.

‘Has he offered to look after this theoretical child?’

‘Tom? No.’

‘Ask him? At least he would realise what he is asking you to give up.’

‘Maybe. How about you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Casey waved. ‘I suppose if I want one at some point, I’ll have one. I’ve never understood men being smug about it all. That tick-tock crap. If I wanted a child – really wanted one, above all else – I’d probably be able to have one within a year. And where would they be?’

‘Quite.’

‘Although I suppose it’s that sort of confidence that leads all the way to Chittagong.’

Miranda almost laughed, and Casey smiled across at her.

Tilney Cottage was to the south of Guildford, just outside one of the pretty little villages that were slowly sprawling into each other along the main road.

Casey stopped the car next to an empty cricket green, the jangle of an ice-cream van in the distance. Miranda looked across at her.

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘No,’ said Casey. ‘But it won’t take long to check, and there was something in Emily’s voice.’

They stepped out of the car.

Tilney Cottage sat at the end of a long, potholed drive, surrounded by fields, just out of sight of the road. Woods reached around the house, thick as a winter coat.

‘Why on earth do they call these houses cottages?’ Miranda had asked, as she stared at an old printout of the agent’s brochure. ‘It’s hardly a bloody cottage.’

Casey flicked through the brochure. The kitchen was country-perfect: a navy blue Aga, a row of copper saucepans. ‘We’ll go across the fields,’ she said.

They had dressed for it, in walking boots and coats, safe from the chill. A bridle path ran along the shelter of a hedgerow, taking them a few hundred yards from the cottage.

Close up, Tilney Cottage was a big, tile-hung house, surrounded by yew hedges. It had the air of a house that had been rented out for too many years. Shabby, and not quite cared for, the swimming pool a leaf-filled hole.

Casey had checked with the agent. A nice couple had hired it for a month, and then it would be available for rent again. ‘They’re charming, the current tenants,’ the girl had trilled. ‘I’m sure I could show you around, say, this Friday?’

Clouds were gathering overhead now. In the gathering gloom, lights showed downstairs. ‘Let’s get a bit nearer,’ Casey murmured.

They crept closer, to where the shape of the topiary was blurring slowly along the boundary of the garden.