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discovered the buyer came from France. Or, at least, his parents had – poor man had lived here twenty years. And that was it. “I’m not selling my land to a bloody appeaser. No Frog’s getting his clammy hands on my ancestral home . . .” The irony was that no Pottisworth had ever served in the bloody war. They all managed to get themselves invalided out, or into the ruddy Payroll Corps.’
    ‘I don’t think I ever heard him speak well of anyone,’ said Matt, staring up at the house.
    ‘Mrs McCarthy, surely. After everything she did for him . . .’
    ‘Nope,’ said Matt. ‘Not even Laura. Not to my knowledge.’ He had sat down on one of the long, low walls that surrounded the house, broken by steps that led into what had been the driveway. He sat with an air of relaxed ownership, as someone would if they were about to have their picture taken.
    ‘Matt.’ Derek Wendell was at his shoulder now. ‘I really need a word.’
    Laura noticed the look on his face before Matt did. Even in her hazy, drunken state, she recognised something in it that sobered her.
    ‘The will, is it? Can’t we talk details later?’ Matt clapped him on the back. ‘Do you never go off duty, Derek?’
    ‘I haven’t been in this house for thirty years,’ Mrs Linnet announced, from behind them. ‘Last time was the old man’s funeral. Two black horses they had, pulling the coffin – I went to stroke one and it bit me.’ She held out her hand, squinting at it. ‘Look, I’ve still got the scar.’
    People were talking over each other now, more interested in telling than listening.
    ‘I remember that funeral,’ said Matt. ‘I was standing at the top of the drive with my old man. He wouldn’t go inside the gates, just stood there as the cortège went past. I remember he wept, even after everything that had gone on. Ten years after they’d chucked him out, left him with no home, nothing, he still wept for that old man.’
    Laura was standing still, just watching. Derek, too close to Matt, trying to get his attention, turned briefly to her and she suddenly knew what he was trying to tell her husband. The world fell away from her, like the segments of an orange. She blinked hard, trying to convince herself that what she had seen was the result of poor light or her own tipsiness. But then Derek leaned in and whispered something in Matt’s ear, and from her husband’s hardened features, and the ‘What? What? ’ that broke into the scented evening, she knew that the old man had indeed remained true to himself, as the vicar had said. Even in death.

Three
     
    It was difficult to play the violin when she was crying. The angle of her head meant that the tears pooled briefly in the small hollow between tear duct and nose, then trickled down her face or, worse, on to the violin, where they had to be swiftly removed if they were not to stain or even warp the wood.
    Isabel broke off to grab the large white handkerchief and wipe the tiny droplets from the burnished surface. Crying and playing. One should separate one from the other. But it was only when she was playing that she could express how she felt. It was the only time she didn’t have to put on a brave face, be Mummy, daughter-in-law, efficient employer or, God forbid, ‘stoic young widow’.
    ‘Mum.’ Kitty had been calling her for several minutes. She had tried to block out her daughter’s voice, unwilling to relinquish the last few bars of Mahler’s Fifth, not quite ready to go down and rejoin real life. But Kitty’s summons was gathering in strength and urgency. ‘Mum!’
    She couldn’t play properly if she couldn’t concentrate. She took the violin from under her chin, wiped her eyes, and shouted down, trying to inject lightness into her voice, ‘What is it?’
    ‘Mr Cartwright’s here.’
    Cartwright . . . Cartwright . . . She laid her instrument in its case, then opened the door of the attic room and went slowly downstairs. She didn’t remember the