‘Ach, don’t say that,’ Pat said. ‘You’ve not even been inside yet. Bren loved that place and I for one will be glad to see it occupied again.’

‘Bren,’ Anna said. ‘Was she the previous owner?’

‘Oh yes. No one else has ever lived in the Fishergirl’s Luck, until now. Converted it herself decades ago – bought the building from her father out of the money she saved as a herring lassie in her younger days. Well, that’s how she told it, although if you were inclined to listen to Douglas McKean he’d tell you that she cheated him out of it somehow. She was a remarkable woman. Lived there alone all her life. Died – oh, it’d be five years ago now. Ninety-five, she was, and looking after herself perfectly well right until she went to sleep and didn’t wake up. The place has been empty since then. I don’t think Old Robbie could face letting go of it really, to tell you the truth. They were close.’

There came the sound of the ‘tradesman’s’ door opening and closing.

‘Ahh, here’s Frank,’ Pat said, standing up as a figure appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Frank Thorpe turned out to be a tall, well-built man in his mid-sixties, with the sort of face that looked as if it were laughing even when it wasn’t. He was carrying a curtain pole in one hand and a drill case in the other, and when he saw his wife he grinned as if the sight of her was something he’d been looking forward to for weeks. Anna went to stand up, and the smile took her in too.

‘Ah ha!’ he exclaimed. ‘So the visitor is ours! I wondered whose car it was.’

‘This is Anna, Frank. The new owner of Bren’s place,’ Pat told him, as Anna got to her feet.

Frank leaned the curtain pole against one of the cabinets before taking her hand and shaking it. ‘Very good, very good,’ he said, with a bright enthusiasm. ‘Well then, lass, welcome to Crovie.’ He held up the Makita. ‘You need anything done in that little place of yours, here’s where you come, all right?’

‘Thank you,’ Anna said, smiling.

‘Poor thing’s arrived just when Old Robbie’s got a call out, and she can’t get the key,’ Pat told her husband, as she poured an extra mug of tea and set it down for him.

‘Well, I can pick the lock for you, if you like,’ Frank suggested, his eyes twinkling as he sat and pulled his mug towards him.

Anna blinked. ‘Oh. I—’

‘Oh, Frank, behave,’ Pat chided. ‘The poor woman doesn’t want to know that her nearest neighbour counts that as one of his skills, does she?’