She admired the way Tom had confounded everybody. He insisted that, like so much else, his return to Kilmitten had been accidental, but Tess reckoned he’d underestimated the village’s tidal pull. For years, she’d been an irregular visitor. She’d encouraged her mam, Flan and Lauren to come to England instead. Now, her trips to Ireland were more frequent. She wanted Daisy to have some feel for her background.

She’d read the interview online and had been tickled by the way Vanessa introduced her name. ‘Our good friend, Tess Fortune,’ she’d said. If Tess thought about Vanessa, she thought of her as generically pretty. Good skin, well-tended teeth, expensive hair. And she was thirsty. Thirsty for success and respect and the security that came with knowing her status was several notches above that of the neighbours. Tess wondered if, left to his own devices, Tom would have become a politician. Yet he’d twice persuaded a large number of people to vote for him, so he must have some aptitude for the job. He had a touch of the ‘cute hoor’ about him (one of several phrases in Tess’s vocabulary that Miles could never grasp), but wasn’t as unctuous as some of his colleagues. Most importantly, he was hard to dislike.

Conor stretched out his legs. Their blue-white colour reminded Tess of skimmed milk.

‘Is this where you thought you’d be at forty-seven?’ he asked.

‘Gosh, when we were youngsters, I doubt my imagination stretched that far. Thirty was my outer limit. I remember at Mam’s fortieth figuring her life was as good as over.’

‘Little did you know how much was ahead of her.’

‘True. All the good stuff was still to come.’

Conor picked an imaginary thread from his khaki shorts. ‘When you met Nina in the hospital, how did you think she looked?’

‘Old,’ replied Tess, without pausing to think.

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘She looked worse than you, and you’d just been shot.’ While not a fan of obvious cosmetic surgery, Tess had no intention of sliding into middle age without a fight. Every year she visited a man on Harley Street for a few discreet tweaks. Nina would benefit from his expertise.

‘Do you ever talk to her?’ asked Conor.

‘I talked to her then.’

‘But other than that?’

This was awkward. Since inviting Conor to Willowthorpe, Tess had concentrated on promoting her own agenda. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might also have plans.