He answered Daisy’s question. ‘Gathering volunteers.’

Daisy beamed, extracting one hand from her big front pocket to raise it. ‘Me.’

‘Fantastic. So long as Rea’s OK with it and it doesn’t interfere with your schoolwork,’ he said diplomatically. Daisy had told him she’d been skipping lessons and was in trouble for it. It seemed at odds with everything else he knew about her but teens went through phases. So he understood, anyway, from parents such as Mac and Tonya, as he wasn’t a dad himself.

‘Mum’ll be cool with it,’ Daisy assured him breezily. ‘I’ll ask Auntie Laurel, too. Imagine Middledip having a proper artist involved.’ Her eyes glowed.

A strange feeling began in Grady’s insides. He pretended to need to sort out the zip on his ski jacket while he examined the pins-and-needles sensation in his stomach at the idea of Laurel being involved. Was it alarm? Distaste? Apprehension? ‘Will she be here long enough?’ he asked, still fiddling with the fastening of his coat.

‘She got divorced so she’s living with us for a while.’ Daisy gave another of her beaming smiles. ‘Have you seen her stuff? She gets thousands for a canvas. I was having a nosy this afternoon. Look.’ She produced her phone and flicked to her browser. It was open at Etsy and the screen seemed positively ablaze with colour as Daisy thrust it into his hand.

He found himself gazing at an image of a slender, ethereal woman who’d apparently hurled herself into a man’s arms, tossing back her head to welcome his lips on her throat. Where her hemline should be, the bold, swooping lines of her scarlet dress burst into an explosion of flowers that flew into the air and somehow entangled with the reds and ambers of her hair. The man’s clothes were severe and simple in comparison but every line of his body spoke of the lust he felt for the woman he embraced. Myriad tiny, stencilled designs ebbed and flowed through the kaleidoscope of colours. Grady had never seen anything like it and couldn’t remove his gaze. It was delicate, yet bold, and his body tightened as if the passionate woman was pressed against him.

The caption read: Joyful lovers. Multimedia. Laurel Hill original. The price was nearly three thousand pounds.

He scrolled down to the next image; another willowy woman in a dress of a hundred blues, smiling dreamily as she paddled in frothing waves – priced at just over four thousand – and then a man, his torso naked, grimacing as if he’d just raced his heart out and was flying through the tape at the finishing line. His hair seemed scribbled with the finest threads of dribbled paint. That one was two thousand five hundred.

‘Wow,’ he breathed.