‘’Magine that, liddle ones?’ he’d laugh. ‘One minute you’re swimming about in the briny, a happy little lobster, and the next you are facing a boiling pot while a fat man in an expensive suit sits on a velvet chair with his napkin tucked into his shirt collar, willing to pay over the odds for nothing more than a bite of your bum!’ The girls had found this hilarious, but there was, as ever, truth in his joke. He smiled now at the memory of them at such a young age.

Not that there was anywhere on God’s planet he would rather be than in this small plot of land that was his home, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t mind the fact that one of his daughters was so far away. It was a dilemma. He of course wanted his girls to find their feet and fly. Doing whatever it was that made them happy, but if he had his wish, no matter that it might be a selfish one, he wanted them close. His little family, his greatest achievement, within reach for a shared cup of tea, a glass of blackberry wine or a good old chat in front of the fire.

He knew, too, that Heather, as much as she tried to hide it, now carried a certain sadness about her. He understood; it was as if all was not quite right in the world with their littlest so far away. She might only have been on the outskirts of Bristol, three hours away on a good run, but it felt like she was on the other side of the world when she wasn’t under their roof. They had raised two strong women and yet the thought he kept to himself was that at some level he felt it was his job to be there if and when anything went wrong. Not that there had been much he could do when things had gone so horribly wrong last summer. His impotence surrounding it was like a paper cut in his mind that just wouldn’t heal.

Those damned Mortimers . . .

Climbing down the rickety stairs, he felt his fingers flex and form a fist as they did when he pictured Merrin’s face in the vestry, as she sat upright in the chair with her dress puffed up all around her, looking at once like a child and yet somehow older, as if the reality of life, something truly terrible she had not known existed, had been revealed to her. He exhaled deeply and tried to settle his pulse, which always raced when he pictured the face of the boy he had welcomed into his home for cosy suppers and anecdotes recounted around the table.