Kernow Coast Council has a planning application advisory service which is tucked away at the rear of a soulless office block, a few streets from the sea.

‘Here you go, dear.’ A woman in a green trouser suit holds open the door for me and an acrid smell of sweat hits me when I duck to get under her arm. Her face is pink and shiny and the man behind the front desk is equally frazzled. He’s called Warren, according to his lanyard, and looks about twelve years old. At first I take him for a work experience lad but his lanyard is dated six months earlier. Oh, great! I’ll soon be commenting on how young the police look these days, like Jennifer does whenever the local community support officer calls in to discuss her shoplifting complaints.

‘Air conditioning has packed up,’ says Warren by way of greeting. ‘All they’ve given me is that.’ He points at the small fan next to him which is wafting humid air from one place to another. ‘It’s probably illegally hot in here. Anyway’ – he snaps back to what he’s supposed to be doing – ‘how can I help you?’

‘My name’s Annie Trebarwith and I’m here about my property, Tregavara House in Salt Bay.’

‘Ah, yes,’ says Warren, reaching for a big brown box file on the shelves behind him. ‘There’s already some info about that. I think you spoke to my colleague about it a few days ago.’

Before I can disagree, he pulls out a piece of paper. ‘Here we are. You wanted to know what permissions would be needed to demolish the property and build flats for holiday usage on the site. Or to retain the house and convert it into flats.’

‘Ugh, no.’ I stare at Warren and shake my head. ‘That wasn’t me.’

‘It says Trebarwith on here which is an unusual name.’ Warren stares at the paper and then starts gnawing his lip. ‘Ah, but it wasn’t you who saw my colleague. Sorry about that. You said it was your property?’

‘Yes it is,’ I say, trying to read upside down but Warren stuffs the paper swiftly back into the file. It doesn’t matter. It could only be Toby contemplating knocking down Tregavara House to build holiday flats. How could he?

I thought Toby had some feeling for family tradition and wanted to maintain links with his past, but I failed to spot the pound signs in his eyes. I’m such an idiot! Just because my cousin is trying to forge a relationship with his daughter doesn’t mean he’s gone all family-friendly.

‘So how can I help you?’ asks Warren, folding his arms and then unfolding them when he realises it’ll just make him hotter.

‘I’m here to ask about changing Tregavara House into a B&B and what I would need to do.’

‘It depends. You might need planning permission for change of use and then there are building regulations to consider as well. I’ve got some info here about it.’

He roots in his desk and hands me a leaflet that I flick through. ‘Do you get a lot of people in here asking the same thing then?’

‘Uh, yeah, ’cos tourism is one of Cornwall’s main money-spinners. We’re overrun with German tourists at the moment – they can’t get enough of the place. Do you speak German?’

I shake my head, wishing I’d paid more attention in language lessons at school. Getting my head around ‘le’ and ‘la’ in French was fine but discovering German words could be neutral as well put the kybosh on it for me. That was far too complicated when I had more pressing things in my life, like whether Mum was mentally well enough to get up and dressed.

Warren pulls the fan closer to him. ‘It doesn’t matter much anyway. They all speak English better than we do.’

I push the leaflet into my bag to study it later. ‘Hypothetically, Warren, if I did fancy knocking Tregavara House down and building flats there, would it be allowed?’

Even asking the question feels horribly disloyal to Alice and the many generations of Trebarwiths who preceded her.

‘Probably not because it’s listed and Salt Bay lies in a conservation area. But that wouldn’t necessarily stop it from being converted into flats as long as the right permissions were sought first.’

That’s good to know, but it doesn’t really matter whether Toby would be able to go through with his grubby plans or not. It’s obvious he has no intention of letting us stay at Tregavara House and he doesn’t give a monkey’s about the building.

He must never get his hands on it.