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under her breath.
    But Lisa knew it wasn’t entirely true that Adam lived with his in-laws. She remembered when she and Neil had picked him up to take him to the sailing club and he’d shown them round the property. He lived in a cottage in the grounds of his in-law’s home that overlooked a tidal estuary. The two-bedroom cottage had been used by Adam and Michelle and the children during the school holidays. It had a garage where Adam now kept his Jeep, and a separate entrance into Manor Farm Lane.
    There were extensive views across the estuary to the hills beyond , and when the tide was in the sound of the lapping waves filtered through the open windows, together with the cawing of the gulls as they wheeled on the air currents rising from the sea.
    At the side of the cottage was a vegetable garden tended by Jack, now retired. At the rear of the main house were the remains of small cages where Nicole, Michelle’s younger sister, had invested much of her childhood rehabilitating her menagerie of injured birds and other wildlife.
    Beyond the perimeter of the property the land sloped down to the cliff and shoreline, accessible only to the nimble as the old mud pathway had eroded and was dangerously slippery after a rainfall , but was used by Adam to take Romper, a miniature Yorkshire terrier that had been Kirsty’s dog, for a morning run. Now too old to jump on Adam’s bed, the dog slept in a basket beside it. Polly, Adam’s mother-in-law, had the dog tucked under her arm, and Lisa had noticed how young and attractive she still was and wondered if Michelle had looked anything like her mother.
    Where Manor Farm Lane turned in from the road there had once been a public access path to the shore, but the rudimentary steps had long since washed away and having been declared dangerous by Health and Safety regulations had been cordoned off with concrete barriers. Only trysting teenagers now used it.
    The road leading down to Manor Farm Lane was bordered by fields of grazing cows and where the locals went mushrooming. Michelle and Nicole had often walked the mile to the main road to catch their school bus. There were only a few families living in Manor Farm Lane and they looked out for each other. There was no chance of anyone calling on the pretext of ‘just passing’ – Adam was safe from the Barbara Crooks of the world, which brought Lisa back to Barbara Crook’s question, and Adam’s reply, which had appeared to silence her.
    When Jenna had finished talking to Andy she returned to the staffroom and Adam addressed them. “If you’ve no objections I propose we have a weekly staff meeting in the assembly hall on Fridays at three forty-five.” His tone suggested that objections would not be welcome, and they nodded their reluctant agreement.
     
    Adam spent the rest of the week checking on the various lessons, often flustering the teachers and distracting the girls as he strolled between their desks, his hands in his pockets, stopping now and again to look over their shoulders and read their notes.
    Annette Woolf was writing on the blackboard with her back to the class when she was startled by Adam bursting in and striding over to Glenda McKenzie’s desk. Engrossed in writing a text message she did not realise he had seen her through the corridor window and it wasn’t until his hand closed over hers that she was conscious of his presence. He took her phone and slipped it into his pocket. “You can collect it from me at four fifteen,” he said, leaving the class in a stunned silence, and Annette Woolf having forgotten where she was in the lesson as he excused himself and left the room.
    Jenna Murray was conducting an experiment on photosynthesis in her science class. The girls were standing beside benches equipped with Bunsen burners as she explained how they were going to compare leaves kept in sunlight with leaves kept in the dark. The leaves were first to be immersed in half a beaker of boiling water to kill the leaf