GINA WAS GETTING bored with the Merrylife Hotel and the relentless good natures of Mary and Ruth Hathersage. Nothing seemed to annoy the sisters or put them out of sorts in any way. Gina had attempted a few acts of rebellion just to add a welcome note of friction to her days and vary the monotonous cheerfulness of hotel life, but the sisters hardly seemed to notice, or if they did they dealt with it so cleverly that it took away any pleasure Gina might have derived from her antics.

She took to dropping items of crockery or forgetting to set the tables properly for dinner, but the sisters just treated her like a rather slow child.

‘Never mind, Diana. No harm done,’ said Mary when Gina smashed a plate.

‘Don’t worry, Diana. You’ll soon get the hang of it,’ smiled Ruth when half the cutlery was missing from the place settings.

One day in July, Gina pretended to forget that a small party of Dutch people were booked in; she left the rooms unprepared, taking herself off for the afternoon for a solitary picnic on the beach, but when she returned the Dutch were there, all was well, and Mary didn’t even mention it.

‘Ah, Diana, there you are, dear,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ve had a good afternoon? Would you mind, please, just peeling these potatoes while I roll out this pastry?’

In the face of Mary and Ruth’s smiling kindness, Gina felt a little mean-spirited at playing such petty tricks, but would her life ever be more than peeling potatoes, she wondered. She might as well be at Highview Cottage, preparing tea with Mum and Nell.

In the first few weeks of employment at the Merrylife, Gina had hoped – in addition to lying low – to meet some interesting people, just as she had when she went to the Hall but, exactly as she had discovered at the Hall, she had misjudged the situation. The guests at the little hotel were, on the whole, far from glamorous or exciting. Many were middle-aged or elderly couples. The women tended to look a bit like Mary and Ruth, while the husbands wore sports jackets and ties all day, even though they were on holiday at the seaside. Often the couples sat and read books while they ate, even though they were eating together.

Despite the lack of interesting people at the Merrylife, Gina rather liked St Annes, with its long, wide main street, smart shops and sandy beach. But while she was there, working at the hotel, she felt she was biding her time, waiting for something to happen. There had been no photograph of her emblazoned across the newspapers, and by the middle of July she’d given up looking out for unwelcome publicity or, if she were out, feeling a tap on her shoulder in the street followed by her prompt arrest by a policeman.