Here was murder and sudden death. Crude violence violently displayed. And she was letting herself be worried about a hair-lotion and a pot of vanishing-cream! All at once something in her kicked and it seemed damnably silly. To start with, she probably wouldn’t see Nicholas at all. People in the suburbs go up to town, but no one comes down from town to a suburb unless there is something to bring him there. There was nothing to bring Nicholas to Grove Hill. The aunt with whom he used to come and stay had gone to join a sister in Devonshire. There was very little likelihood that Althea would meet him round any street corner. But if by any chance she did, why should he see her looking as if she had been feeding an empty heart on ashes for the five longest and loneliest years of her life? It was true, but the naked truth could be a terribly shaming thing. She would never see Nicholas again, but if she did see him she would contrive to fly a flag or two.

As she turned away from the shop window. Myra Hutchinson waved to her from across the street. She was a decorative creature, vivid as a poster in brown corduroy slacks and an orange cardigan above which her hair glowed like a newly minted penny. When they were at school together she had been a wisp of a white-faced girl with sandy eyelashes. Those days were gone. The lashes were now dark enough to set off the grey-green eyes. There was colour in the cheeks, there was a brightly painted mouth. The effect was cheerful and attractive. She had been married for five years and she had three children. She was a couple of years older than Althea, and she looked half a dozen years younger.

Althea turned round and went back to Burrage’s.

TWO

IT WAS WHEN she was walking up the High Street on the way to the bus stop that she encountered Mr Martin. She was passing his office – Martin & Steadman, house-agents – and he was seeing a prosperous-looking client out. The client went off in the direction from which Althea was coming, so that Mr Martin really couldn’t help seeing her.