Her mother headed straight for the kitchen. Liza didn’t know whether to be relieved or exasperated that she was behaving as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. If anything, she seemed energized, and perhaps a touch triumphant, as if she’d achieved something of note.

“Where is the man now? What did the police say?”

“The man—his name is Lawrence, I believe—is doing very well, although I don’t envy the headache he’ll have after all that drink. I remember one night when I was in Paris celebrating—”

“Mum!”

“What? Oh—the police. They came back this morning and took a statement. A very pleasant man but not a tea lover, which always makes me a little suspicious.”

Liza wasn’t interested in his choice of beverage. “Are they charging him? Breaking and entering?”

“He didn’t break anything. He leaned against the door and it opened. And he apologized profusely, and made a full admission of guilt. He had impeccable manners.”

Liza fought the urge to put her head in her hands. “So will you have to go and give evidence or something?”

“I truly hope so. It would be exciting to have a day in court, but it seems unlikely I’ll be needed as he admitted everything and was so remorseful and apologetic. I thought my life would be considerably enlivened by an appearance in my own courtroom drama, but it seems I will have to content myself with the fictional variety.”

Her mother fussed around the stove, pouring boiling water into the large teapot she’d been using since Liza was a child. The tea would be Earl Grey. Her mother never drank anything else. It was as familiar as the house.

The kitchen, with its range cooker and large pine table, had always been her favorite room. Every evening after school Liza had done her homework at this same table, wanting to be close to her mother when she was at home.

Her mother had been one of the pioneers of the TV travel show, her spirited adventures around the world opening people’s eyes to the appeal of foreign holidays from the Italian Riviera to the Far East. The Summer Seekers had run for almost twenty years, it’s longevity due in no small part to her mother’s popularity. Every few weeks Kathleen would pack a suitcase and disappear on a trip to another faraway destination. Liza’s school friends had found it all impossibly glamorous. Liza had found it crushingly lonely. Her earliest memory was of being four years old and holding tight to her mother’s scarf to prevent her from leaving, almost throttling her in the process.