It had been a while since Laurel needed to get up promptly on a Monday morning but she’d been lying awake anyway thinking how awkward she’d been with Grady. What had come over her? His questions about her leaving the village must have turned her jittery and at least half her mind had been occupied by absorbing the notion that he was still hurt at the way she’d cut their friendship short. Still. It was almost a relief to get up to take Daisy to school.

Breakfast was not relaxed. Rea, who worked for a telesales company from her office at the front of the house, ate quickly, checking the clock. ‘I have to log in by eight.’ Her brow was furrowed and Laurel wished her sister could have a job she really liked.

Daisy dragged herself into the kitchen, half into her black school sweatshirt. Dumping her backpack in the middle of the floor she helped herself to cereal and a huge glass of milk.

Laurel sipped coffee and gave her a smile. ‘What time do we need to leave?’

Daisy shrugged. ‘Soon.’ She finished her breakfast, said bye to Rea, then they went outside, where Laurel scraped sparkling frost from the windows of the SUV. When Laurel got in, Daisy gazed at her with a mutinous expression. ‘I’m not going to skip school. You don’t have to take me.’

Laurel reversed off the drive to turn around in the cul-de-sac of Great End. ‘But I’m going to Bettsbrough to the arts supplies shop. Why wouldn’t I take you?’

After a moment, Daisy said, ‘OK. Cool,’ in a voice that suggested the opposite. She hunkered down in her seat and busied herself with her phone while they headed out of the village. After half a mile, she pointed at her phone screen with an air of triumph. ‘Art shop’s shut on Mondays.’

Laurel didn’t let the announcement slow her down. ‘Damn,’ she said with faux regret because though she’d run supplies down when she knew she was leaving her Chiswick studio, she had a lot to do before starting a new painting. And, anyway, she bought almost everything online. ‘I should have checked the opening hours. Still, I have to buy heaters for the studio. I expect that retail park outside town will have some.’ She drove on up the lane, over potholes and under frosted trees, their winter-bare branches reaching out as if to hold hands above. Idly, she added, ‘The bus to school used to be a zoo when I was your age. Isn’t it nicer to have a chauffeur?’

‘The school bus is fine,’ Daisy answered.