Tamara breezed in through the front door of her childhood home, Max in tow, and on into the sitting room, fending off an exuberant doggie welcome from Jabber.

‘Hel— Oh!’ She stopped short at the sight of the man talking to her parents and Lyddie, her sister.

A jolt of recognition. Jed. Jed Cassius.

The last time Tamara had seen Jed, he and Lyddie had been thirteen, a huge three years older than Tamara. Her heart twisted to remember how Lyddie had been ‘seeing’ fun, good-looking Jed Cassius, writing his name on her books at school and being told off at home for hanging out with him, instead of getting her homework done. Now, there wasn’t even recognition in Lyddie’s eyes as she treated him to her usual open and guileless smile.

‘Um, hello,’ Tamara began. When Jed Cassius only stared in response, she glanced at her parents for clues to the mood. Her father, Sean, wore his usual genial expression. But Cheryl, her mother, looked wary.

Lyddie stumped across the room, flinging herself on Tamara with a big hot hug and a wet kiss. ‘Hey, ’Mara! Way to go!’ Way to go was Lyddie’s latest phrase. She latched onto certain combinations of words and used them over and over. Beaming, she hauled Tamara forwards, almost into Jed Cassius. ‘This is my sister, ’Mara, and her boyfriend, Max.’

Gently, Sean took Lyddie’s arm, a signal that she needed to calm down. ‘Yes – remember Jed, Tamara? We used to be friendly with his family.’

Jed’s eyes were the green side of hazel. They hadn’t changed. But the gangling, laughing teen of Tamara’s memory had been overlaid with a self-possessed, assured man; taller, built from muscle, jaw like a blade, his hair darker. She swallowed. ‘Yes, I remember you. You lived right down Main Road, not far from Gabe Piercy’s place.’

He smiled faintly. ‘I remember you being around but I wouldn’t have recognised you.’

Lyddie was fixed firmly in chatter mode. ‘Isn’t ’Mara’s dress pretty? I like the way it shows the tops of her boobs.’

Jed Cassius was surprised into letting his eyes flicker to Tamara’s neckline and, though well used to Lyddie’s lack of inhibition, Tamara felt the beginnings of a blush.

‘Max,’ Lyddie beamed. ‘Do you like the way—?’

‘Oh, yes, Saucepan Lid.’ Max gave Lyddie’s long hair a friendly tug.

Lyddie, eyes bright, roared with laughter at the familiar joke. ‘My name’s Lyddie, not Lid! I can’t fit on a saucepan. Maxie-Max, did you buy a house?’

‘I’ve seen one I like. But it’s not in the village—’

‘Let’s talk about that later.’ Tamara shot Max a warning frown. She turned back to Jed. ‘We used to call your parents Uncle Don and Auntie Fiona. Your family moved away not long after Lyddie’s accident.’

Their departure had been only a spark of sadness in a furnace of grief, as Tamara had been forced to watch Lyddie struggling to talk in her new laborious voice and to grind through physio with her new awkward body.

Jed nodded. ‘That was us.’

Cheryl slid a brisk arm around Lyddie. ‘Come on, darling, it’s nine thirty, let’s get you ready for bed.’

If Lyddie didn’t get enough sleep she turned grouchy and difficult. But challenging behaviour had to be accepted from someone who was thirty-three-going-on-eleven, who had bits of her brain that seemed to have set like the tarmac her head had crashed onto when a speeding car had knocked her old life right out of her.

Lyddie’s mouth turned down. ‘I don’t want to go to bed. Tamara’s not going to bed.’

‘But you need your sleep, darling.’ Cheryl took her hand.

Reluctantly, Lyddie allowed herself to be guided towards the stairs. ‘Can Jabber sleep with me tonight, Mum? Just tonight? Just once? Just once? He’ll be good, he’s a good dog, Jabber is.’

She was wasting her breath. Cheryl never allowed Jabber to sleep upstairs and he always seemed perfectly content with his green beanbag and leopard-print fur fabric throw in the kitchen.

Sean sent Tamara a smile. ‘Jed’s come to talk to us about something.’

Jed had been watching Lyddie’s exit with eyes that were dull with shocked compassion. He switched his attention back to Sean. ‘I’d like to wait till Cheryl’s back downstairs.’

So this was no impetuous visit. Tamara’s neck prickled. ‘Would you like coffee?’

‘Thanks.’ Jed’s hair was the bronze brown of a new chestnut, straight and silky, falling into his eyes. He had the look of someone who wanted to be somewhere else: stiff, watchful.

Max followed Tamara into the kitchen. ‘I thought we were only popping in for a minute so that you could say goodnight to Lyddie? I want to talk about the house.’

She shrugged a half-apology. ‘But I want to know why Jed’s here. And it’s your house, Max. I’ve already got one, here in Middledip.’

He reached round her for the sugar canister, trapping her against the cupboards as he spooned sugar into mugs. ‘But mine will be big enough for both of us. And it’s the right side of Peterborough, so you wouldn’t be that far from your precious Middledip.’

From upstairs, Lyddie yodelled, ‘Goodnight ev-er-y- bodeeee.’

‘Goodnight, Lyddieeee,’ they all yelled back. Her bedroom door clacked shut.

Tamara bumped Max out of the way with her bum, and picked up the tray. ‘Mum will be down in a minute. Let’s get this into the sitting room.’

Cheryl trod down the stairs to rejoin them, took her coffee with a nod of thanks, and perched on the edge of an armchair. ‘Well, Jed?’

Jed accepted the cue, looking from Sean to Cheryl and then to Tamara, cradling his coffee mug. ‘My dad died recently, from cancer.’ He lifted his voice to override the murmurs of sympathy and dismay. ‘And in his last days of coherence he told me something that he made me promise to come and tell you.’

The room went still.