‘Penny for them?’ Pat asked, pushing the plate of biscuits across the table.

‘Oh,’ Anna said, taking one. ‘Just wondering about menus for next week.’

Pat beamed. ‘That’s my girl. This guest of ours won’t be the last, I bet. The Fishergirl’s Luck is going to put Crovie on the foodie map, I know it.’

Anna laughed. ‘I doubt that very much. Not with twelve covers at most a week and no guarantee of getting a table.’

‘Ahh, but people love that, don’t they?’ Pat said. ‘Exclusivity, that kind of thing.’

The next big conundrum that Anna had to solve was when and how to tell Liam. A big part of her felt as if she wanted to live with the idea on her own for a while longer, to keep the secret just hers. Cathy knew, of course, but she’d tell no one, and besides, she was so far away from the bubble of life inside the bay that it didn’t even seem to count.

The problem was that keeping any secret in Crovie was almost impossible, and Anna was worried that someone would work out the truth. If that happened, it’d be everywhere before she’d even had time to take a breath, and the thought of Liam finding out he was to be a father from someone else was awful. She did her best to keep everything entirely normal, but then came a sunny Tuesday afternoon and a call from Rhona.

‘I’m coming over with gin, all right?’ Rhona declared. ‘I’ve had a hell of a day. Be there in twenty.’

‘I’ll get the glasses out,’ Anna said, and her friend had rung off before it had occurred to her that she couldn’t drink, and that there was no bigger giveaway. She phoned Cathy in a panic.

‘Antibiotics,’ Cathy told her. ‘You can’t drink if you’re taking them. Invent something invisible and innocuous. Ear infection, that always works.’

‘You’re good at this,’ Anna observed.

‘Blame a lifetime of avoiding getting utterly hammered at corporate events with creepy old white men with a black girl fantasy,’ Cathy said. ‘By the way, I’ve done a new poster for the Fishergirl’s Luck. It reflects the one hundred per cent five-star ratings you’ve got on TripAdvisor, you clever thing. I’ll send it over.’

Cathy’s subterfuge worked. Rhona betrayed only momentary disappointment at Anna’s enforced sobriety, and absolutely no suspicion.

‘All the more for me,’ she quipped, as Anna nursed a lime cordial while Rhona splashed an overly generous measure of Hendricks into her tall glass.

It was not long after five o’clock and the sun was still high, a light breeze curling through the village as it so often did at this time of day. Rhona had arrived looking harried.