‘Your personal circumstances cannot be allowed to affect your ability to perform your job. This is an important position.’ And once she’s paused to let that sink into her employee, while fighting the flicker of a smile that might even be an expression of satisfaction, Sheila returns to her car and stuffs herself inside it. She hasn’t finished with Jess, though, and peers out of the driver’s side window to issue a final reprimand. ‘And, for the love of God, don’t touch Morag’s bloody chicken again!’

Mute and stupefied, Jess watches Sheila start her car. Across the road, she catches the eye of the elderly grandmother in the large sun hat. A woman she’s seen out front several times. A neighbour who immediately dips her head to conceal her face beneath the brim of her hat.

Sheila pulls away but Jess remains at the kerb and continues to consider the neighbour, before crossing the lane to the hedge hemming an impressive cottage and another immaculate and vividly coloured garden.

The elderly neighbour continues to trim a long supple length of hawthorn. Around her feet, a range of gardening implements and a growing collection of sticks, cut to various lengths, are neatly laid upon a green plastic sheet. For fear that the stooped figure is unaware of her, Jess clears her throat.

A prompt for the gardener, who startles Jess by speaking without looking up. ‘Nerthus House remains under a shadow. Even on a day as beautiful as this, you can see it.’ The gardener straightens her back, effortlessly, without a groan or sigh. And though her eyes remain shaded by the brim of the hat, her brilliant white teeth are set in either a grimace or a grin. It’s hard to tell.

She’s around a decade younger than Flo and elegantly attired. Even her gardening gloves appear tailored. A fairy-tale grandmother and a tad hyper-real, as if she’s a model on a brochure selling happiness, health and retirement plans. ‘How is dear Florence these days?’

Jess feigns a polite smile. ‘Feisty. A devil. An angel sometimes. Never predictable.’

To which the woman issues a peal of polished laughter. ‘She hasn’t changed then! So imperious. Mercurial Florence. I doubt even dementia could dent that.’

‘You lived here long?’

‘Most of my life.’

Which prompts Jess to peer around herself at the enchanting street. ‘You’re lucky. It’s beautiful.’

‘Blessed. Literally.’

As if directed there by the comment, Jess peers at the distant church spire, the neighbour following her eyes.

‘Oh, the village was considered sacred long before they showed up. A Roman general once wrote of Eadric. All wooded then, reaching in every direction for miles. He claimed it was holy to the ancient Britons. Probably for millennia before other faiths washed ashore.’

‘Flo has some old things. In her cabinet. Broken pots and stuff.’

‘Flo’s children found so much. In the waters of the grove.’