‘It was.’

‘Tom and Marianne are coming over some time this afternoon, if that’s OK?’ he said. ‘They’re dying to see the place.’ Tom Bedford, a fellow painter whose career was really taking off, was his best friend, and Emily got on really well with both him and his wife.

‘That’s fine. Louise is coming around four to help me get the work kitchen straight, and we have to go through the menu for the anniversary event and make sure we have everything we need for it, this side of Christmas. How’s Tom and Marianne’s little boy getting on – Kit?’

‘Just had his fourth birthday.’ Jason finished his porridge and put the bowl in the dishwasher. He went to the window and looked at the little house across the road, where last night he had seen, for the second time, the couple with the young children in the upstairs window. There was no sign of life. And he noticed, for the first time, the blue developers’ sign by the front door, with writing so large he could read it from here.

SQUIRREL’S NEST. 34 LAKEVIEW DRIVE.

FOR SALE.

So, who, he wondered, had he seen in the window yesterday? The new potential buyers?

He hoped so. They seemed friendly.

13

Saturday 15 December

Shortly before midday, Maurice Penze-Weedell pushed the fully laden shopping trolley across the busy car park of the garden centre. It had been as costly an experience as he had feared it would be, with Mrs P-W managing to rack up a bill of over three hundred pounds on plants they did not need, cheeses, Christmas tat, new gardening gloves and God knows what else she had bunged in when he hadn’t been looking.

Happy wife, happy life, he’d reminded himself.

And at least, he’d consoled himself, they’d had two free hot drinks – a hot chocolate topped with whipped cream for her and a tea for himself. She’d further splurged on a slice of Battenberg cake, which she had enjoyed so much she’d had a second. Now she strode ahead of him, holding out her arm imperiously as they approached her purple car.

‘Stop here, Maurice!’ she said and pressed the key fob.

As obedient as her husband always was, Claudette’s car reversed itself out of the parking space and stopped in front of them. And just at that moment, out of the corner of her eye, Claudette saw a familiar-looking bright pink van approaching. ‘Oh my God!’ she said.

‘Oh my God!’ Emily Danes said, as they drove through the rammed car park of the garden centre, looking for a space. ‘Look who’s here!’

‘It’s the Neighbours from Hell!’ Jason replied.

She gave his thigh a reproachful slap, hissing, ‘Be polite to them!’

‘I shall be all sweetness and light,’ he answered. ‘Here they come, the Addams family, about to meet their neighbours, the Munsters, for the first time. We like neighbours, don’t we? We like them fried with a little garlic, and some chilli peppers!’