‘No, thanks.’

‘Lots for me, Flo.’

‘Obviously, dear.’

She wiped the chopping board before she sliced the loaf. But Charlie’s silence was persistent. Her husband sat there, drinking quietly and sighing with every sip. It was only once she’d come out of the larder cupboard with the foiled-up dish of beef that there was any further talk.

‘Nothing else has come, you know,’ her husband said. ‘Just that one card.’

‘I know – you told me,’ Charlie answered.

‘I mean, since you phoned on Friday. There’s been nothing else.’ Arthur cleared his throat. ‘Do you think she might’ve settled there? In Aberdeen?’

‘I doubt it. What do you think?’

He cleared his throat again, but harder. ‘It’s unlikely that she posted it herself, I’d say. She’ll have asked someone to take it up there on the train. She’s a lot of things, your sister, but she isn’t dim. She knows how to protect herself all right.’

‘You’re right. I see it the same way.’

As she waited for a gap in the conversation, Arthur squared his eyes at her and drew his head back once, as if to pull her by the reins. ‘Well, nothing more from Applegarth in quite a while. I don’t know if that’s good. I’m only glad I haven’t had to look at him. He brings me out in hives, that fella.’

‘I’ve not seen him either,’ Charlie said.

‘There’s a chance it’s all gone cold for them. They might give up on her.’

‘I worry, though. She can’t be on her own, my sister. Not for ever. She’s already sending postcards. If she thinks it’s time to pop her head up now, it won’t be long before they catch her. Anyway, I didn’t want –’ When she arrived beside him with his sandwich on a plate, he had to pause. ‘Thank you, that looks really good.’ He set it down without a bite. ‘I didn’t want to sit here picking at my scabs all day. I came to see you both.’

She put in, ‘Wait until you see all our tomatoes in the greenhouse. You can take some home with you.’

‘All right.’

‘You know he built that thing from Joyce’s drawing?’

Charlie faced her. ‘Really?’ Then he turned to Arthur.

‘No point letting a good drawing go to waste,’ her husband said. ‘She worked on that a while. I had to make a couple of adjustments, but the bones of it were good.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Don’t have to say a thing. It’s just a greenhouse, after all. Old Hollis knew what he was doing. It’s all down to his advice.’