Lucy shook her head. She felt drained. The post-viral exhaustion was like that; it came on suddenly and left her numb and shaking with tiredness. All she wanted was to be alone to sleep until she felt a bit better.

“We’ll sort it out,” she said to Cleo. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay, sweetie.” Cleo sounded concerned. “You know where I am if you need me. Call me and I’ll come over and fetch you back here.”

“Thanks, Cleo,” Lucy said. “Love you.”

“We can talk tomorrow,” she said to Finn. “I’m sorry if I sound abrupt, but if you’re not living in the barn conversion, I presume it’s free? I’m happy to stay there instead.”

“Of course.” Finn was watching her. She could feel his gaze on her, too observant for comfort. He’d seen how deep her tiredness went. It made her feel vulnerable to a near stranger and she didn’t like it. “Are you sure?” he added. “Geoffrey and I can go down there and kip for the night, and move our stuff in the morning. The only reason I moved up here was—”

Lucy cut him off with a quick gesture. She was feeling a bit dizzy. “Sorry, can this wait? I’m almost literally dead on my feet. Verity told me the barn’s fabulous. I’m sure I’ll love it.” At that moment she was prepared to lie down on a park bench, she was so tired.

Finn reached for her case. “Then let me take this around for you,” he said.

Lucy gripped the handle tightly. “I can manage, thank you. And I know the way to the barn.”

Once again she had the feeling that Finn saw and understood far more than she wanted him to do. Their eyes held for a moment and then he nodded. “The key to the barn is in the safe. I’ll drop by and see you tomorrow.”

The door of Gunpowder Cottage closed, leaving Lucy in the shadowed garden. Twilight had crept closer during the time they had been talking and it was now a place of secrets and mysteries. She shouldered her violin case and dragged the suitcase back down the path to the gate, going out onto the road again and almost immediately turning left along an unmade narrow track that curled downhill around the edge of the cottage garden. On her right was a paddock; a curious donkey stuck its head over the gate and viewed her with an intelligent gaze as she rumbled past.

At the bottom of the small hill stood Gunpowder Barn. The jumble of derelict farm buildings that Lucy remembered from her childhood had been swept away with the largest one converted into a holiday home. It was the perfect combination of traditional and modern, comprising huge glass windows, exposed beams and original stonework. Where Gunpowder Cottage wrapped you about with an intimate sense of time past, the barn was an elegant fusion of the past and present that looked mainly modern. And yet... Was that not a whisper of something else, something much older, in the breeze that stirred the leaves of the gnarled trees in the orchard? Lucy thought she heard the echo of a voice calling and the patter of footsteps. A shadow slipped from the corner of the path and melted into darkness. But it was only a cat, stopping to wash its paws and view Lucy with its impenetrable gaze.