He meant Guy, but Angharad misunderstood him.

‘We don’t know that they will. Caravans 48 and 50 were empty last night. The travellers are moving on this weekend and perhaps…’ she glanced at John, ‘perhaps we could slip them a sweetener to make sure nobody says anything. I’ll pop back to the caravan later, have a word with the girl, see how she’s feeling about all this carry-on.’

Will nodded, utterly miserable.

‘If the worst comes to the worst,’ said John, ‘we can say it was someone else; some other lad come in off the street.’

‘But Alice knows me,’ Will said quietly. ‘She’d know it was me.’

‘Then we’ll have to hope she’s got a forgiving nature.’

‘I’ll talk to her. I’ll apologise. I’ll try to put things right.’

‘No!’ said Angharad. ‘Abso-bloody-lutely not. You need to stay away from her, Will. Don’t go near her, or her caravan, until this is sorted. We don’t want you being accused of harassment. That’s the last thing we need.’

‘Your mother’s right,’ John said. ‘Nothing you do now will make things better. We all need to stay calm and wait to see what happens next. If the girl wants to come to you that’s one thing. You going to her is quite another.’

‘Maybe nothing’ll happen,’ said Angharad. She sniffed then, took a tissue from a man-size box on the sideboard and blew her nose loudly. Then she asked Will: ‘Does anyone else apart from the three of us in this room know about you being sweet on that girl? About you being a jealous little idiot?’

Marnie Morahan knew. And Guy deVillars would have a pretty good idea if he’d been in the caravan when Will was outside shouting his mouth off.

‘No,’ said Will.

‘Well, let’s keep it that way. You stay away from that part of the site, don’t say a word to anyone and let’s pray that all this soon blows over.’

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