‘Meredith, love, are you all right? You look terrible.’ Ceri stared into her face, concern furrowing her brow.

‘I’m OK,’ Meredith said, turning away and clipping Dexter’s lead on. ‘Insomnia, that’s all. It’s my hormones. See you in a bit.’

Their daily circuit always took them past the bell house, up to the main gate to say hello to George, then round through the rough parkland, back into the orchard, through the trees and back up the stairs to the office, where Dexter would climb into his basket under Ceri’s desk and sleep for most of the rest of the day.

‘Looking a bit peaky this morning, Meredith, if you don’t mind my saying,’ George commented, leaning out of his sentry box as he greeted her. He was a large man, much too large for his box. When he was in there, Meredith always thought it looked like a cameraman had zoomed in on him – he filled the frame.

She hadn’t wanted to see him, or anybody but Ralph, that morning, but she wanted to stick to her routine.

Just in case.

There was a splodge of something unidentifiable but disgusting-looking on the front of George’s uniform. She normally would have pointed it out, peeled a wet wipe from the pack she kept in her bag and gone over to scrub it off for him, but all she could manage today was another weak protestation that she was fine.

‘Late night, was it?’

‘My brother came over and we drank too much wine. And I’ve got terrible insomnia,’ she croaked.

George opened his mouth to sympathise, but his attention was taken by a coach arriving, full of Japanese tourists. George made a conspiratorial face at her, baring his small, brownish teeth.

‘Shall I be nice, or shall I tell them the car park doesn’t open till nine? It’s only just gone eight! Reckon they’re on a different time zone.’

‘Be nice,’ Meredith instructed, managing to make her voice sound normal – at least to her own ears. ‘Just make sure they know the shop opens at ten. I don’t want that lot hammering the door down in five minutes’ time.’

He raised the barrier for the coach as Meredith pulled Dexter away from something by the side of the sentry box the dog was sniffing at with great interest, and they set off, back up the narrow driveway through the parkland.

It curved in a graceful arc for half a mile from the gatehouse and public car park until it reached the house itself. It was a view that still took her breath away every morning – the grandeur of the honey-coloured façade with its towers and carvings.