‘You and me, love, we get on just grand, don’t we?’ she’d said only the previous evening when she and Ellen had taken their cups of tea outside to drink them sitting in the sun. ‘You know, Nellie, it’s so good not to have to worry all the time, to know when I come home that it’s going to be a nice evening.’

Ellen had hugged her mother. She understood exactly what Dora hadn’t said. No one was missing Philip.

This summer felt like a welcome respite from the unhappy summers of previous years, thought Ellen, snipping back another cluster of browned flowers on Mrs Stellion’s favourite red rose. Why would either she or her mother want anything to change – at least for the moment?

Gina closed the door of Mr Stellion’s study. She laid Edith’s book of telephone numbers down on the desk, picked up the phone and dialled.

The telephone rang at the other end once, twice, three times …

Come on, come on …

Gina was just thinking James must not be there when the phone was picked up and a woman’s voice said, ‘Hello?’

It had not occurred to Gina that anyone other than James would answer. Who was this woman? Suddenly she realised she knew nothing about James’s life at ‘his place’ in Pimlico.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Gina. ‘May I speak to James Stellion, please?’

‘He’s not here,’ said the woman.

‘Oh … when will he be back?’

‘I’ve really no idea,’ said the woman, unhelpfully. While Gina wondered what to do next, the woman seemed to relent because she said, ‘I’ll take a message for him, if you like. Who’s calling?’

‘It’s Gina. Please would you tell him Gina called and … just … I need to speak to him.’

‘Yes, all right, Gina, I’ll tell him,’ and she put the phone down.

Who was that? Gina’s mind was racing. James had certainly not said anything about a woman. Gina had always imagined he lived alone in his big house with his big garden. He might have a housekeeper of his own and maybe someone like Tom or Ellen to look after the garden. If she really examined her imaginings, she would have said that he lived alone because he was just waiting for the right time to ask her to come up to London to join him. Maybe that abrupt woman was the housekeeper … though her attitude had rather suggested she wasn’t a paid employee.