Daidre thought of couriers and messengers when she saw him: someone carrying a package for her, perhaps a message from Bristol? But she was expecting nothing, and from what she could tell, the rider had nothing with him. He went round her cottage to seek another door or to look into a window. Or worse, she thought.

She made for the path and began to descend. There was no point to shouting because she couldn’t have been heard from this distance. Indeed, there was also little point in hurrying. The cottage was some way from the sea and she was some way above the lane. Likely by the time she got back, the rider would have left.

But the thought that someone might be breaking into her cottage spurred her downward. She kept her glances going between her footwork and her cottage as she went, and the fact that the motorcycle remained in place in her driveway kept her speed up and her curiosity piqued.

She arrived breathless and dashed in through the gate. Instead of a housebreaker half in and half out of a window, though, she found a girl clad in leathers lounging on her front step. She was sitting with her back against the bright blue door and her legs stretched out in front of her. She had a hideous silver ring through her septum and a turquoise-coloured choker tattooed brightly round her neck.

Daidre recognised her. Cilla Cormack, the bane of her own mother’s life. Her gran lived next door to Daidre’s family in Falmouth. What on earth, Daidre thought, was the girl doing here?

Cilla looked up as Daidre approached. The dull sun glinted off her septum ring, giving it the unappealing look of those rings once used on cows to urge their cooperation when they were attached to a lead. She said, “Hey,” and gave Daidre a nod. She rose and stamped her feet as if with the need to get the circulation going.

“This is a surprise,” Daidre said. “How are you, Cilla? How’s your mum?”

“Cow,” Cilla said, by which Daidre assumed she meant her mother, Cilla’s disputes with that woman being something of a neighbourhood legend. “C’n I use your toilet or summick?”

“Of course.” Daidre unlocked the front door. She ushered the girl inside. Cilla clomped across the entry and into the sitting room. “Through there,” Daidre said. She waited to see what would happen next because surely Cilla hadn’t come all the way from Falmouth just to use the loo.

Some minutes later-during which time water ran enthusiastically and Daidre began to wonder if the girl had decided to have a bath-Cilla returned. Her hair was wet and slicked back and she smelled as if she’d decided to help herself to Daidre’s scent as well. “Better, that,” she said. “Felt like bloody hell, I did. Roads’re bad this time of year.”

“Ah,” Daidre said. “Would you like…something? Tea? Coffee?”

“Fag?”

“I don’t smoke. I’m sorry.”

“Figgers, that.” Cilla looked round and nodded. “This’s nice, innit. But you don’t live here reg’lar, right?”

“No. Cilla, is there something…?” Daidre felt stymied by her upbringing. One didn’t come out and ask a visitor what on earth she was doing visiting. On the other hand, it was impossible that the girl had just been passing by. Daidre smiled and tried to look encouraging.

Cilla wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but she did manage to get the point. She said, “My gran asked me would I come. Said you di’n’t have a mobile.”

Daidre felt alarmed. “Has something happened? What’s going on? Is someone ill?”

“Gran says Scotland Yard came by. She says you’d best know straightaway cos they were aksing about you. She says they went to your house first but when no one was home, they started banging doors up an’ down the street. She phoned up Bristol to tell you. You wa’n’t there, so she reckoned you might be here and she aksed would I come here to let you know. Whyn’t you get yourself a mobile, eh? Or even a phone here? That’d make sense, you know. I mean, just like in a emergency. Cos it’s one hell of a way to get here from Falmouth. And petrol…D’you know how much petrol costs these days?”

The girl sounded aggrieved. Daidre went to the sideboard in the dining room and fetched twenty pounds. She handed it over. She said, “Thank you for coming. It can’t have been easy, all this way.”

Cilla relented. She said, “Well, Gran aksed. And she’s a good old girl, innit. She always lets me stop there when Mum throws me out, which’s about once a week, eh? So when she aksed me and said it was important…” She shrugged. “Anyways. Here I am. She said you should know. She also said…” Here Cilla frowned, as if trying to remember the rest of the message. Daidre wondered that the girl’s grandmother had not written it down. But then, it had probably occurred to the elderly woman that Cilla was likely to lose a note while a brief message of one or two sentences was not beyond her ability to pass along. “Oh. Yeah. She also said not to worry because she di’n’t tell them nuffink.” Cilla touched her septum ring, as if to make sure it was still in place. “So why’s Scotland Yard nosing round you?” she asked. Grinning, she added, “What you done? You got bodies buried in the garden or summick?”

Daidre smiled faintly. “Six or seven,” she said.

“Thought as much.” Cilla cocked her head. “You’ve gone dead white. You best sit down. Put your head…” She seemed to lose the thread of where one’s head was supposed to go. “You want a glass of water, eh?”

“No, no. I’m fine. Haven’t eaten much today…Are you sure you don’t want something?”

“Gotta get back,” she said. “I’ve a date tonight. M’boyfriend’s taking me dancing.”

“Is he?”

“Yeah. We’re taking lessons. Bit daft, that, but it’s summick to do, innit. We’re at that one where the girl gets thrown around a bit and you got to keep your back real stiff otherwise. Stick your nose in the air. That sorta thing. I got to wear high heels for it, which I don’t like much, but the teacher says we’re getting quite good. She wants us to be in a competition, she says. Bruce-that’s m’ boyfriend-he’s dead chuffed ’bout it and he says we got to practise every day. So that’s why we’re going dancing tonight. Mostly we practise in his mum’s sitting room, but he says we’re ready to go out in public.”

“How lovely,” Daidre said. She waited for more. More, she hoped, would consist of Cilla’s leaving the premises so that Daidre could come to terms with the message the girl had brought. Scotland Yard in Falmouth. Asking questions. She felt anxiety climbing up her arms.

“Anyway, got to dash,” Cilla said, as if reading Daidre’s mind. “Lookit, you best think about having a phone put in, eh? You could keep it in a cupboard or summick. Plug it in when you want it. That sort of thing.”

“Yes. Yes, I will,” Daidre told her. “Thanks so much, Cilla, for coming all this way.”

The girl left her then, and Daidre stood on the front step, watching her expertly kick-start the motorcycle-no electronic ignition for this rider-and turn it in the driveway. In a few more moments and with a wave, the girl was gone. She zoomed up the narrow lane, curved out of sight, and left Daidre to deal with the aftermath of her visit.

Scotland Yard, she thought. Questions being asked. There could be only one reason-only one person-behind this.