Cora had been to the bank, her third visit this week. And she had sorted everything out to her satisfaction upstairs. Everything was in order.

Still, she couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that had been gnawing at her insides for the best part of a week.

Something wasn’t quite right, but infuriatingly, she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. She just knew these things.

As a little girl, her mother used to say she had a sixth sense. Young Cora had liked that; it had always made her feel special. She’d nearly always know someone was coming before a visitor knocked. And she could sense, on waking, whether it was going to rain.

Not the most useful sixth sense to have, she supposed, but still, even now she’d get a feeling about something and be proved correct more often than not.

The frisson of discomfort she’d been experiencing was to do with the two people around her: David and Holly. She’d been gratified when Holly told her they were going to the cinema together this afternoon.

‘Just as friends, obviously,’ she had said flippantly that morning, as if no one in their right mind could possibly want anything more from poor David.

Cora often worried about him. Despite his age, there was something vulnerable about him that clutched at her heartstrings.

When she looked at him, she still saw that awkward young lad dashing round to sit with her in the kitchen whilst Harold’s back was turned in the vegetable patch.

David had always been protective of her. Loyal. Since Harold had died, he’d been so kind, popping round to do odd jobs for her despite his phobia of doing anything outside of his tried-and-tested routine.

That was why she’d joined Pat in protecting him. That was why she kept Nick Brown on side.

Cora had often thought that David was the closest thing she had to a son.

So a new friendship with Holly was a good thing, in Cora’s opinion, and she would encourage it.

But aside from this, she’d been sensing something out of kilter in the air. Holly had been very quiet of late. She hadn’t sat and chewed the fat with Cora for a while, and every time Cora had attempted to carry on with her life story, Holly always seemed to remember that she had some job to do that couldn’t wait, upstairs in her bedroom.

Cora suspected that her visitor wasn’t sleeping too well. She’d heard bumps and shuffles from across the landing on a number of nights. But in the morning, when Cora had asked if she’d had a restful night, Holly had simply nodded.

David also seemed to have what Cora could only describe as a strange energy about him. Pat had once explained that the medication he took kept him stable and calm.

‘The doctor said the worst thing he can do is get himself excitable,’ she’d told Cora over tea and a slice of carrot cake in the café after David had been discharged from the hospital. ‘It’s very important he finds himself a suitable routine so he can manage everyday life.’

Very recently, Cora had noticed that David seemed a little jumpy, as if the acute nervousness might be returning.

This could well be because that clod Brian Buckley had moved in with them. What on earth was Pat was thinking, allowing that to happen? It was bound to be disruptive to David’s routines.

There was no accounting for some people’s taste, she thought disapprovingly.

Brian could be quite cutting with David, and Cora had spotted him coming out of that disreputable betting shop on the high street. It had been packed full of men old enough to know better, she recalled. All of them frittering valuable bill money, no doubt, Brian included.

It was difficult to explain even to herself, but Cora was also finding it hard to relax in her own bedroom.

Goodness, she’d lived in this house nigh on forty years so there shouldn’t be an inch of it she didn’t know. Certainly nothing to make the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

Yet the past couple of nights when she’d gone up to retire for the night and slipped into her nightgown, she’d felt uncomfortable to the point of convincing herself someone had been in there, even though nothing had been disturbed.

As she thought about it now, she felt a little foolish. She was certain that Holly would never take it upon herself to nose around in her things.

Besides, Cora seriously doubted that any young woman would ever see past the bottles of lavender water, the heated lower back pad and the collection of support pillows arranged just the way she liked them on the bed.

There wasn’t a scrap of evidence Cora could find to support her feelings of discomfort. But if it was all in her imagination, why couldn’t she shake the feeling she was somehow being watched?