‘That’s a plus?’ Justin queried.

‘Radiators would have spoiled it,’ Mark explained.

‘That’s what Uncle Joe used to say.’ Evie chuckled. ‘He said he didn’t want to spoil the place with a lot of “new-fangled rubbish”. We used to put electric fires on in winter.’

‘If there’s somewhere to lay our heads,’ Justin said, ‘that’s all we ask.’

‘You can have the guest room. It’s got two single beds.’

She’d just finished cleaning the room. Now she found linen and dumped it on the beds.

‘It won’t take you long to make them up,’ she said, smiling at Justin. ‘Mark, why don’t we leave your father to it, while you and I go into the kitchen and we’ll see what there is for supper?’

She departed, throwing a challenging look over her shoulder. He regarded her with his eyebrows raised, but did not seem disconcerted.

When they were in the kitchen Evie muttered to Mark, ‘What is your father playing at?’

Mark’s shrug was eloquent. ‘Dad sets his heart on something and he has to have it. He promised me I could talk to you again.’

‘Even if it means chasing me halfway across the country and missing a whole day’s work?’

Mark gave a snort of delighted laughter.

‘Actually he won’t be missing that much,’ he said. ‘He’s brought his laptop computer. He can send and read emails at any hour. And he’s got his mobile phone so that all his calls won’t go on to your phone-’

‘All his calls? How many calls will there be, and how long is he planning to stay?’

‘The actual time doesn’t matter,’ Mark said wisely. ‘Dad can get through more business in five minutes than anyone he knows. That’s what he says, anyway. And he always calls America in the evening because they’re five hours behind us, and he says that’s really useful-’

‘In other words, he isn’t actually planning to take any time off at all. It’ll be business as usual, just in a different setting.’