Salmon, she thought. We’ll have some nice salmon fillets with a parsley sauce and rice. Up until a few weeks ago she had been barely scraping by on a meager pension in Liverpool, and she still had difficulty believing that, thanks to Mrs. Lloyd’s kindhearted generosity, she could have almost anything she wanted for dinner.

Penny Brannigan stood in the centre of the reception area of the about-to-open Llanelen Spa and turned slowly around. Although the space was still littered with leftover construction debris, the walls had been painted a soft, sophisticated shade of green, the recessed lighting was subdued and restful, and the space gave off a feeling of calm serenity. She smiled at her business partner and friend, Victoria Hopkirk, who was pointing at a closed tool box set squarely in the corner.

“They’ll make sure their tools are neat and tidy, right enough,” Victoria grumbled, and then, gesturing at a paper coffee cup lying on its side beside an empty paint can and a few scrap ends of hardwood flooring, “but they leave all this rubbish lying around.”

“We’ll soon have it all cleared away,” Penny said soothingly. “The furniture will be delivered in a few days and we’re in really good shape for our grand opening.”

She held her arms out to the room.

“You’ve done a brilliant job, Victoria. Just a couple of months ago this place was a filthy, run-down, abandoned old building that nobody wanted, and everyone was thinking we were mad to take it on. It’s just amazing what you’ve done.”

Beautifully situated on the bank of the River Conwy, a stone’s throw from the town’s historic three-arched bridge, the charcoal grey, three-storey stone building that had been converted into the new Llanelen Spa had seen many incarnations over the past hundred and fifty or so years. It had begun life as a rather fine coaching inn and then, as horses gave way to the automobile, had gradually lost its way until the Second World War when it had seen service as a billet for the Allied soldiers who trained in the nearby hills.