At the end of the rose garden, she turned left into the vegetable patch, a regimented riot of tomatoes, marrows, netted strawberries and courgettes, then out through the gate marked STAFF ONLY, heading in the opposite direction from her cottage. This took her to her favourite part of the grounds, a once-ornamental pond with a low crumbling wall around it, closed off to the public while awaiting restoration. The pond was surrounded by a scramble of rhododendrons and bulrushes, and Meredith loved it because it was completely private, with a view to die for. The rest of the staff rarely bothered to walk this far from the house, so she almost always had it to herself.

She headed straight for ‘her’ bench, greedily taking in the view over the ha-ha, across the woods and to the Surrey Hills beyond, now shimmering in hazy layers under the cloudless cerulean sky. It soothed her without fail, particularly after a morning spent with the colourful busyness of all the shop’s offerings in her eyeline. A blackbird chirped sweetly in the huge oak on the lawn a few feet away. For the first time since Ralph’s body vanished a week ago, she felt the distant echo of a sense of peace. It wasn’t back yet, but there was the hope that it might be.

Meredith pulled the borrowed baseball cap out of her bag and rammed it on her head to shade her eyes from the sun’s dazzle, moving the label to one side so that it didn’t dangle in her face. She unwrapped the cheese and pickle sandwich she’d made the night before and took a bite. As she chewed, she took the top off her juice and was about to take a swig, when something caught her eye.

The surface of the pond was usually still and bottle green, the only movement the stilted skedaddle of the water bugs. It had been many years since the curly-haired stone cherub in the centre had spat any water through his patinated trumpet. But something looked different today. There was something in the water, a lumpish mass breaking the surface, hidden in the rushes to the far side of the cherub.

Meredith wrapped her sandwich back up in its warm foil so that the wasps wouldn’t get to it and went over to investigate. It was a huge, dark object. She stepped carefully round the pond on the chipped and uneven crazy paving.