‘Oh, forget it,’ Gilly muttered, frustrated that even Rachel, who she’d thought would understand better than anyone that a wage one could rely on was worth far more than a daft bit of paper saying that she knew how to make a pretty picture, didn’t seem to get it.

Twenty-Seven

‘What a beautiful place.’

Rachel looked out of the large picture window in which she and Toby were sitting. The tiny village of Crovie curved away from them, a single line of houses between the cliffs and the whip-narrow sliver of land on which they had been built. She’d never seen a place like it – it looked so precarious, as if a strong gust of wind could tip every house from the shore into the water, which was apparently what had almost happened only a year or so before. The sun was finally beginning to set after a long day of blue summer skies unsullied, for once, by rain. Rachel felt as if she had crossed a continent rather than just a county.

‘Isn’t it?’ Toby agreed. ‘I’ll have to thank Sylvie for telling me about it.’

‘Thank her for me, too,’ Rachel said.

He smiled at her, the setting sun bathing his face in orange light. ‘I’m glad you changed your mind about coming.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you were right. It was a good idea to get away from the lighthouse, even just for a few hours.’

It was Saturday evening and they were at the Crovie Inn, finishing their coffee after the most delicious meal that Rachel had eaten for a long time. The place was busy, and a few times since they’d sat down, Rachel had heard people around them referring to the television series that had apparently accompanied the restaurant’s opening a few months before. Rachel watched a wave roll up against the only path that led through the village and was fascinated by the idea that at the highest tide this route was sometimes entirely impassable. Earlier she and Toby had parked in the car park at the top of the hill and walked slowly down into the village and along the sea wall and back, the wind blowing the last remaining cobwebs from Rachel’s crowded mind as she’d breathed in the sea air.

Rachel’s first reaction had been to say no when Toby had asked if she’d like to have dinner with him at this place a couple of hours’ drive away from Newton Dunbar. She’d backed away, told herself – and him – that she couldn’t.

‘I’m not asking you for a date,’ he said. ‘I understand that’s not what you’re looking for from me. But we’re friends, aren’t we? And, as your friend, I think you could do with getting away from here for a bit. For a change of scenery, for a break. That’s all. Anyway, Sylvie’s been in my ear about this place she wants me to visit. I don’t really want to go on my own, and if I don’t go at all she’ll never let me hear the end of it.’