There had been a market that day, but the only signs in the town centre were scraps of vegetables in the gutter outside the entrance to Hepton’s flat. He lifted his suitcase out of the car and unlocked the main door. There were three flats in the house: one on the ground floor, one on the first floor and another in the attic. His was the first-floor flat, and he took the winding stairwell with accustomed awkwardness, manoeuvring the suitcase around the twists of the climb.

There was no mail waiting for him on the matting that covered his hall floor. The neighbour downstairs, Mrs Kennedy-Hall, had a key to the flat and sent the mail – bills always – on to him at the base. He unlocked the door. The flat smelt musty. He hadn’t been here in over a fortnight, and then only to play the gigolo in a failed seduction.

The place looked tidier than he remembered it. They had drunk a lot of wine that night, and rather a lot of neat gin (there being no tonic water to hand). None of it had helped. He couldn’t remember clearing up afterwards, though. Perhaps Mrs Kennedy-Hall … But no, it would be more her style to hire someone to tidy.

Then he heard the sounds, at first placing them in the street below. The sounds of running water, of things being moved, breakable things. There was someone in his kitchen …

He ran towards the source of the noise and stood in the kitchen doorway, dumbstruck. At the sink stood a tall, attractive woman, perhaps a year or two younger than him. She had rolled up the sleeves of her white blouse and was up to her elbows in soapy water. Clean dishes stood on the draining board, the worktops shone, the whole place was sparkling. The woman turned, saw him and smiled.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You must be Martin.’

‘That’s right,’ Hepton said at last. ‘And who the hell are you?’

‘Harriet,’ she answered, letting the water out of the sink. ‘My friends usually just call me Harry.’ She dried her hands on a dish towel, then held out the left one towards him. There were no rings on her water-reddened fingers. ‘How do you do?’

Hepton shook her hand awkwardly, right-handed himself, and she noticed his hesitation.

‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘I’m always doing that – shaking with the wrong hand, I mean. Sorry.’

‘Not at all,’ said Hepton. The shock of finding a stranger in his flat, a breaking-and-entering charlady, was ebbing. Questions filled the space. ‘But who are you?’ he asked. ‘How did you get in?’

‘Care for some tea?’ Harry had turned her back on him and begun to fuss with the kettle.