Sara packed her bag of groceries, lifted it from the counter, and said, “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I appreciate it.”

“I’m sorry it wasn’t a happier topic,” he said.

She had reached the door when he called after her.

“There’s one thing.”

Sara stopped and turned to look back at him, passing the bag from one hand to the other.

“You seem like a decent young woman, so I don’t know if I should say this or not. Francie Keane would be your father-in-law, wouldn’t he?”

She felt the fine hairs on her arms ripple and stand. “Yes,” she said.

“About a fortnight before the fire at Mary Jackson’s house, he came in here. He asked me about Mary, if she was fit to keep that place, and did I think she’d ever sell it if someone offered the right money. I told him Mary didn’t have any sense of money, what it was and what it was for, but I could ask her if he wanted me to. So I did, and she said, no, she wasn’t for selling. I called your father-in-law’s solicitor, like he told me to, and passed it on. Two weeks later, there was a fire.”

He dropped his gaze and ran his fingertips over the counter’s surface, sweeping away some detritus that only he could see.

“I never told anyone else about that, and I never will, it’s none of my business. But I thought if you didn’t know, then maybe you should.”

She searched for a response, anything, but found none. She turned and left the shop.

11: Esther

11: Esther

Esther had gratefully accepted Thomas’s offer of another cup of tea, and he’d bought one for himself, but they didn’t finish them. “We should get down the road,” he’d said, and Esther had agreed as butterflies and small birds flittered around inside her.

He wore a suit. The same one he’d worn the first day he’d approached her in the cafe. She had been trying to hide her tears, weeping behind her hand as she wondered how long the owners would let her sit there without buying anything more than the tea that had gone cold an hour before. He was a big man, tall and broad, with blunt and meaty fingers and dirt under his nails. He had the odour of the farm about him, manure and earth and sweat.