A quick trip to the superstore in Rakne had given someone enough time to break into both the main house and the annex. ‘I can’t have been gone more than an hour, hour and a half tops,’ Karen had grumbled to herself as she crept through the rooms with her eyes peeled and her ears pricked up, all too aware the burglar might still be in the house.

Not likely, true, especially considering the white van she had passed at the turn-off from the main road as she was coming home with a new electric screwdriver, four boxes of assorted screws, and two boxes of red wine. She hadn’t given the van a second thought at the time, just absently noted that she didn’t recognise it.

Once she got back to the house, it had immediately been clear what they had taken – her silver.

There were two circles in the layer of dust on top of the chest of drawers in the living room where the candlesticks from the late eighteenth century had stood. The drawer that had contained the silver cutlery she had inherited from the Breton side of her mother’s family had been ransacked and discarded on the floor.

Other than that, the boys in the van seemed to have made the assessment that Karen Eiken Hornby owned nothing of value. They hadn’t even bothered to steal the relatively new TV she’d bought in the post-Christmas sale. Her collection of decent wines from the Alsace vineyard of which she owned a few measly per cent, was, granted, perhaps not a traditional target for burglars, but the fact that they hadn’t nabbed at least a few bottles indicated that they’d never even ventured down into the basement. Probably – she had consoled herself in a moment of injured pride – they’d been interrupted by something.

Somewhat reassured after making certain her bottles were safe, she’d belatedly realised what the burglars would really have loved to find and rushed over to the annex with her heart in her mouth.

A few minutes later, she had called Leo to tell him his most prized possession was missing. The guitar of guitars, a Martin, built in 1932, may have survived Leo’s time on the streets, but it hadn’t made it through being left in a house with ridiculously pathetic locks, probably made around the same time as the guitar.

Her stomach had been in knots and thoughts of insurance and her liability as Leo’s landlady had raced through her mind while the phone rang. And then the relief that had washed over her when Leo had picked up and said everything was fine, that he’d brought the guitar to the studio, had made her agree to bring him the new keys. The moment the locksmith was done, she’d jumped in the car. Nine hundred and sixty marks and fifty shillings, and a few pounds of family silver poorer.