The last room Tori showed him was what was obviously the master bedroom. He stood at the door and saw how she’d been living for the past six months, and he drew in his breath in dismay.

There was a camp stretcher in the corner. There were half a dozen cardboard cartons acting as storage and as a bedside table. A basket lay in the corner for Rusty.

Nothing else.

At speed dating he’d thought she’d looked dowdy. It was a miracle she’d managed to look presentable at all.

‘No mirror?’ he asked, trying to make it sound as though he was joking.

‘No mirror.’ She’d recovered a little now; her voice was firmer. Moving on. ‘Just as well, as I suspect I’d scare myself silly.’

‘You look all right to me.’

‘Said the man who looked at me like I was a porrywiggle on our five-minute date.’

‘A what?’

‘A tadpole. Something that wiggles out of pond scum.’

‘I never said…’

‘You never had to. Have you seen enough?’

‘More than enough. Are these all your possessions?’

‘I live light,’ she said, in a tight voice. ‘I can be gone in half an hour.’

‘Where are you staying tonight?’

‘You’re not kicking me out tonight?’ she demanded, alarmed, and he shook his head.

‘I’m not kicking you out at all. I’m asking if you have an alternative-something a bit less appalling than here.’

‘Here’s fine.’

‘Here’s not fine. This place needs an army to make it habitable.’

‘It’s a lovely house.’

‘It could be a lovely house. It’s anything but now. Do you have anywhere you can go?’

‘Of course I do,’ she retorted, but he thought that she was lying.

There were all sorts of emotions twisting inside him right now. He didn’t want to get involved-when had he ever?-but walking away from her…