‘Ah, we’ll find another ship to rig in no time,’ said Alan.

As it turned out they had; the chicken shop had taken them both on, wanting staff who knew the premises. Alan was on deliveries, Bev worked the deep-fat fryer.

Fleur had disappeared, Minnie wasn’t sure where to. Perhaps she was living offline at home in her parents’ Wi-Fi-free zone, or maybe she’d finally set up that horoscope-themed dating app she’d always talked about. Minnie was surprised how much she found herself missing Fleur, of all people.

Giving up the business had been a seismic shift. Like tectonic plates grinding against each other, this small earthquake had released the pressure, preventing more cataclysmic consequences. It had been the right thing to do, she was sure of it. Yet she missed her colleagues, she missed her customers; she missed hearing about Mr Marchbanks’s cats and Mrs Mentis’s bunions. Most of all she missed Leila, and she missed her with a yearning she could only describe as heartache.

They still communicated, sent texts, occasionally exchanged news over the phone. But something had changed between them since their argument. Leila worked days, Minnie worked evenings. They’d met up for Saturday morning coffee a few times, but a polite distance had settled between them. Minnie felt she was catching up with an old acquaintance, exchanging information. She found herself commenting on the coffee, which was never a good sign. Patching together pieces of their friendship in a semblance of repair had not healed the underlying wound.

So Minnie worked and she swam and she saved and she swam, and she kept her head down and she held her breath. Swimming and breathing, living and working, waiting for the next seismic shift to move the ground beneath her feet and right everything again. Or perhaps to suck her under and drown her.

Minnie took four long strokes beneath the dark, cold water, then another, then another. As she ran out of air she felt the fight in her lungs push her to the surface. Survival took over and she broke the surface with a gasp of relief. As she climbed out of the pond onto the jetty, she saw that her towel was not on the bank where she’d left it. She shivered, looking for who might have taken it – a cruel trick at this time of year. A few yards away stood a man, rubbing his face with her blue swimming towel.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, striding over to him, ‘I think that’s my towel.’

The man pulled the towel down from his face. Quinn.

Minnie’s eyes fell unconsciously on to his sculpted torso and she quickly forced her gaze back to his face.

‘Minnie? Hi,’ he grinned. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Freezing,’ she shivered. ‘That’s my towel.’