With the unpacking mostly done, Holly reluctantly admitted that she couldn’t string it out upstairs much longer. It was time to go down again.

‘Get a grip,’ she muttered out loud as she felt the familiar resistance inside flare up. She hated that Geraldine’s voice piped up in her head so frequently, especially since, infuriatingly, she’d often been right: sometimes Holly was her own worst enemy.

Cora now had a solution for her chronic loneliness and Holly had found a much-needed home and, hopefully, a stable base from which to begin rebuilding her life.

There was just one last thing to do.

At the bottom of the suitcase lay a laptop. It had been Geraldine’s, and Holly had managed to sneak it out of the house without her even missing it, such was the wealth of possessions the other woman had.

She took the lead and plugged it into the wall socket at the side of her bed. The battery was completely flat but should be fully charged by the time she came up to bed later.

When she got downstairs, Cora was still sitting in her armchair by the window, leafing listlessly through a magazine.

‘There you are, dear. I was beginning to fear you’d got lost up there.’ She laid the magazine on the arm of her chair. ‘Now, where was I? Ah yes, our wedding day.’

Holly sighed inwardly but managed to raise a smile.

‘That’s right,’ she said, perching on the end of the sofa. ‘March 1966.’

‘I remember it as if it were yesterday…’ Cora’s eyes glazed over; she had immersed herself in the past so completely that the odd grunt and affirmative nod from Holly was all that was required to give the impression that she was listening.

She stared in fascination as Cora’s soft, drooping features grew steadily more animated, more alive.

Rather than feeling guilty, Holly felt this was what Cora wanted from her. Simply another human being to sit and witness her life lived so far. To listen without interruption whilst she brought her memories out to polish again.

It was heartening and understandable.

Holly began to relax a little, caught up in the rhythmic waves of sound as Cora told her story.

She closed her eyes, allowing a slight smile to play on her lips as if she were visualising the eighteenth-century church and the hand-made Nottingham lace that had trimmed nineteen-year-old Cora’s ivory wedding gown.

A rap at the back door made her sit up sharply, her eyes springing open.

Cora frowned slightly.

‘Who can that be?’ She glanced at the heavy wooden clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Too early for Mr Brown.’

Apparently Mr Brown only lived a couple of doors away. Holly recalled Cora telling her he’d been taking care of the heavier garden duties for the last few months.

‘Shall I see who it is?’

‘It’s all right, dear, I’ll go.’ Cora sighed and clambered awkwardly out of her chair.

Holly eased herself back down onto the sofa, her heart pounding at roughly twice its usual speed at the interruption.

What if it was…?

She shook her head to dispel the unhelpful thoughts. It was important to keep up with this more positive frame of mind; it was going to do her no good at all to fret over impossibilities. She was safe here.

She was safe, because nobody could possibly know of her whereabouts.

The back door opened and she relaxed as she recognised the bright tones of mutual greetings. The visitor was obviously someone Cora was pleased to see.

‘Come through, dear,’ Holly heard her say as the back door thudded shut. ‘It’s been far too long.’

‘Yes, it has, and I’m sorry about that,’ a woman said, her voice drawing closer. ‘I was going to pop round this week anyway, and then David said he’d seen a young woman – oh, hello!’

Holly guessed that the woman standing in front of her was in her early sixties. She had mid-brown hair that was shot through with grey at her temples, and her entire outfit also consisted of varying shades of brown.

‘This is Holly, my visitor,’ Cora said without hesitation. ‘She’s staying with me for a while. Holly, this is Pat. She lives next door.’

‘Hello.’ Holly stood up.

Pat reached cautiously for her outstretched hand as though she was about to pet a dog whose intentions were ambiguous.

‘Hello… Holly,’ she said softly. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you. My son – David – he’s spotted you in the yard once or twice, so I thought I’d pop round and introduce myself.’

‘Oh, I haven’t seen anyone else in the other gardens,’ Holly remarked.

‘No, he saw you from upstairs.’ Pat’s cheeks flushed a little. ‘He… spends a lot of time working in his bedroom.’

There was a beat of silence until Cora jumped straight into her tea duties.

‘No, no, I’ll make the tea,’ Holly insisted, glad to get out of the room. ‘Give you two a chance to catch up.’

She stepped outside the door and pulled it to, but not fully closed, behind her.

The two women’s voices dropped lower, but she was able to catch certain phrases, like ‘poor girl’ and ‘lovely to have some company’. Then she heard Pat’s concerned voice: ‘We’re going to have to watch David.’

Holly forced herself to loosen her jaw and walked into the kitchen.

She wasn’t quite sure whether she wanted to meet this David person or not.

It reminded her of the day she’d left Nottingham with Markus. She hadn’t got a clue what kind of people they’d meet in Manchester; it was a leap of faith. Markus had already spent some time there, but he’d only been there long enough to make tentative contacts.

It had been a milestone because it was the moment all her plans and intentions had finally turned into hard action. Both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.