He went downstairs and into the dining room. A broad-shouldered woman was already sitting at one of the tables, with her back to him. As he entered she turned and looked at him over her shoulder. She smiled, lipstick seeping into the tiny lines around her mouth.

‘Hi, Will,’ she said.

He didn’t recognise her at first. God knew he had enough on his mind without playing silly games that morning, but she pushed her chair back and stood up, and at the same moment Mr Bradshaw came into the room carrying a rack of toast. The smell of the charred bread and the sight of the woman assailed Will at exactly the same moment and he realised: she was Daisy.

‘Dad told me you were here,’ she said, ‘and that you were on your own and I thought it’d be fun to surprise you.’ She touched her hair and smiled. ‘Why don’t you join me?’ She pointed to the chair opposite hers.

‘No, it’s fine, I’ll…’

‘Please,’ she said, ‘it’ll give us chance to talk.’

Will could hardly refuse. He walked round the table and sat down as Mr Bradshaw placed the toast in the centre of the table. ‘Black coffee?’ he asked Will, and Will said, ‘Please.’ Daisy smiled with the fondness of a parent tested by a rebellious child, as if black coffee was a hard drug.

She took a triangle of toast and laid it on her side plate. Her fingers were short and square, the nails trimmed, strawberry-blonde hair cut like her mother’s in the picture in the hallway, eyebrows that were beginning to bush. She had a dab of yoghurt to one side of her mouth and she smelled strongly of sweat and perfume.

‘So, how’s life treating you?’ she asked brightly.

‘OK, thanks. Yeah, good. Fine.’

‘It sounds like more than “OK” to me!’ Daisy said coyly. ‘I’ve bought all your books and I follow you on Twitter. I’m always looking at the photographs you post and retweeting them. Sometimes you like my comments. Did you realise it was me?’

Will made a noncommittal ‘Mmm,’ sound. He hadn’t, of course. He needed to start paying more attention on social media. Saoirse was always telling him he should.

Daisy had always been statuesque. As a girl she had been handsomely attractive; now her figure was shapeless, her appearance dull. She had a line of dark fuzz on her upper lip. She dipped her knife in the butter pot and began to spread the fat on the toast. He could smell the warmth from her body, see the engineering of her bra beneath a tight, salmon-pink jumper with a glittery mermaid embossed on the front.

Will couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her.

‘So, what’s it been like coming back to Severn Sands?’ she asked. ‘Has it been fun?’

‘Not really,’ he replied truthfully.