So he stayed, ferrying her back and forth to the therapist on Tuesday and Friday mornings, finding anodyne movies on Netflix to watch in the afternoons, pressing treats on her – a lovely bath essence or her favourite chocolate – and telling her endless funny stories about her mother. In fact, it reminded him of those months when Nell was ill and he’d done every practical thing in his power to try to make things better. They never talked about Michael.

Finch missed Romy. But it wasn’t a missing like the tearing heartache when they’d first split up. It was more a quiet, almost pleasurable knowing that she was still there, and a hope that soon they might be together. Though he worried that Grace might never willingly accept Romy’s presence in her life.

He called Romy after supper every night, when he got back from his stepdaughter’s house. He would pour himself a glass of wine and sit by the glowing stove in the sitting room. Romy would do likewise down in Sussex. And they would talk about everything, getting to know each other in a way their previous encounters had barely allowed for – so overshadowed had they been by their troubled pasts, by Michael’s stroke, by Grace, and taken up with the powerful physical attraction that existed between them.

Romy told Finch she had secured a part-time job at the Arun Wetlands Centre, two days a week, working on a project to protect Bewick swans in their migration path. She said she and Cathy from the deli were becoming friends. Finch told Romy about Grace’s progress, his plan to run a fundraising marathon in Russia next spring and his thoughts about getting a dog, perhaps a collie.

And, gradually, he watched Grace coming back to life. At first it was just the odd flash of her old ebullient personality, followed by troughs of silent despair. But the flashes were becoming more the norm, and both Finch and Sam began to allow themselves some hope.

Now, they climbed in silence. Finch was fitter than Grace, after her weeks of hibernation, and he heard her laboured breathing as they reached the top of the rise and looked out across the rolling hills of the National Park.

‘Wow,’ Grace said, when she’d caught her breath.

‘It always takes my breath away.’

Grace laughed. ‘It was that bloody hill took mine.’

After another moment during which they both gazed out at the glorious view, she went on, ‘So do you like it here, Finch?’

‘I love it.’

She turned a sharp eye on him. ‘Honestly? You’re not just saying that?’

‘What’s not to like?’