‘Well, no one would make up a name like that!’ she said, taking Grace’s hand and shaking it warmly. ‘I’m Melissa. Ray’s wife. You’d better come in, like. It’s freezing with the door wide. Come and have a cup of tea, pet, and tell me all about this husband of yours.’

Melissa led Grace through into a small but crowded sitting room. A three-piece suite in a rich floral fabric dominated the floor space; the walls were papered to dado-rail height in a striped paper and finished with a border that matched the sofa. The effect was busy, but cosy. A Barbie doll and various outfits were scattered across the shag-pile carpet. The child, a girl as it turned out, was sitting barely inches from the television watching The Smurfs. They had hardly been in the house two minutes and she was already there, noted Grace, but then who was she to judge how someone else parented their child when she had a nanny at the Hall?

‘Make yourself comfortable, pet. I’ll go put the kettle on,’ said Melissa, and disappeared.

Grace picked her way through the Barbie clothes and sat on the armchair in the bay window. You could actually see the sea from here, although there was the road and the promenade in between. Yes, she thought approvingly, Charles had picked well. Or maybe the house hadn’t been his choice at all? Perhaps Ray had found it and Charles had just stumped up the cash. She would ask Charles for more details of the transaction when she got home. She might even tell him that she had met Ray’s wife. Grace felt a fizz of excitement as she imagined Charles’s face. He would never believe that she could have tracked Ray down like this on her own. Sometimes she wondered if he thought she was completely hopeless, and that all she did all day was sit in the Hall and direct the staff. He was going to be so surprised.

Grace glanced at Melissa’s child. If anything, she looked slightly older than Clio, although Clio had always been tiny, having never seemed to quite recover from her shaky start in life. The child was a pretty little thing with fine blonde hair caught up into two bunches, and the same round cheeks and small neat nose as Melissa.

‘Hello,’ Grace said to the child.

The girl didn’t turn to look at her, but she said hello back.

‘My name’s Grace. What’s yours?’

‘Leah Allen,’ replied the girl.

‘Hello, Leah. And is this your Barbie?’