The Fishergirl’s Luck still stood with her back to the sea. Anna was surprised how emotional seeing it there made her. There had been a part of her, she realized, that had expected it to have been swept over the sea wall and into the bay.

It was Anna who helped Pat with Frank’s funeral arrangements. Doing so seemed surreal. She kept expecting the door to Robert MacKenzie’s house to open and to see Frank walk through it, that smile on his face, the sound of laughter underlying his words.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do now I’m on my own,’ Pat said, more than once. Her grief was monumental, as if her bones were carved from it. They cried together, Pat and Anna, and in her darker moments Anna wondered how this grief was affecting the baby in her womb. More than that, she wondered why humans did it – why they fell in love at all when the loss of it caused such immense pain. Anna felt as if she’d lost her father all over again.

‘I know it’s not enough,’ Anna said, on one of these occasions. ‘But I’m here. You’re not on your own.’

Pat squeezed her hand. ‘I’m not your responsibility, love,’ she said. ‘You’ve got more than enough already. You can’t stay in a village that’s gone to rack and ruin, not when you’ve got more important things to think about.’

‘There’s no point talking like that until we know the extent of the damage,’ Anna said. ‘It might not be as bad as we all fear. We know the Weaver’s Nook and the Fishergirl’s Luck are still standing, after all.’

Pat squeezed her hand again, but she was distracted, and Anna had distractions of her own. An email from Melissa about the cookbook had reminded her that life elsewhere was still going on. It was only in reading it that Anna realized that all her recipes were in the notebook that was with the other two she’d left inside the overnight bag she hadn’t had time to pick up during the escape. Really, the cookbook was the least of her worries and she hoped that her editor would be able to understand that, as she said in her emailed reply. A few hours later Anna’s mobile rang.

‘Anna,’ Melissa said, as soon as she answered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Anna rubbed a hand over her eyes. ‘Look, this cookbook – I’m not sure it’s going to work. Not anymore.’

‘Don’t even think about that now,’ her editor said. ‘I’m calling because I wanted to check on you as a friend. But also to put you in touch with someone. You know that we also publish Taymar Zetelli?’

‘Oh, yes. I’ve got a couple of her books.’