reached the top step. She saw the dog’s tail for a few more seconds, and then they were both gone.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Molly asked, returning with a fresh bottle of wine, a lurid pink rosé that had been on offer in the supermarket but Robin hadn’t yet plucked up the courage to open.
Robin rubbed her nose, listened for the sound of Tabitha’s front door closing, and then flopped on to the sofa. ‘Someone just went inside next door. Someone who arrived in a battered old Alfa.’
‘Who?’ Molly asked, sounding as shocked as Robin felt. ‘Squatters? More property developers?’
‘It’s after nine,’ Robin shook her head. ‘He had a holdall and a fluffy dog and … and I don’t know what else. But he’s gone inside, or at least he disappeared up the stairs and I heard the door close.’
Molly made a ‘come on’ motion with her hand and Robin finished her wine, then allowed her friend to refill her glass. ‘Borrow some sugar.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s go round and ask to borrow some sugar.’
‘No. No way.’
‘Why not? I bet Mrs Harris would.’
‘Don’t lump me in with her,’ Robin warned. ‘How would it look? Someone goes into a house that’s been empty for a year, and then someone else who lives in an open, functioning guesthouse asks the new person for a cup of sugar. It’s completely back to front. I may as well scrawl nosy neighbour on my forehead.’
‘So go and say hello. Introduce yourself.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you’re next door.’
‘You’re on the other side,’ Robin protested. ‘You’re a neighbour too.’
‘But I’m not at home right now.’ Molly clutched her wine to her chest and pulled her legs up on to the sofa.
Robin sighed. ‘I am not going to go and knock on the door. Not until at least tomorrow, otherwise he’ll know I noticed him arriving.’
Molly whooped and let out a loud peal of laughter. ‘I knew I could rely on you.’
‘Shush. Now, how’s this wine? Is it as toxic as it looks?’
It was after midnight, and the doorbell was ringing. Robin looked up from the sink and glanced down the hallway as if that would give her clarity. All her guests were safely tucked up in their rooms. She knew this because as they’d come in throughout the evening she had invited them to have a glass of wine with her and Molly. Catriona and Neil had accepted, and the four of them had spent an hour in Sea Shanty, Robin and Molly extolling the virtues of Campion Bay to the young couple, who turned out to be on their first holiday together – paid for with Neil’s work bonus – and had travelled from just outside Birmingham.
But now it was officially tomorrow, and the doorbell was definitely ringing. Robin had had it replaced, having spent far too long listening to sound-snippets on a website before picking the perfect chime, so there could be no mistaking it. She padded down the hallway, wondering whether Molly had, in her slightly tipsy state, left her phone behind, but as she got closer to the door and turned the outside light on, the figure behind the coloured glass became clearer, and it wasn’t Molly-shaped.
Robin pulled the door open and tried not to gasp. ‘H-hello,’ she stuttered, ‘how can I help?’
It was the man who’d gone into Tabitha’s house. He had the same tall frame and broad shoulders, and the same small dog at his feet. A closer look confirmed he was her age, or perhaps a couple of years older. He was blinking at her under the outside light, and he was soaked. Robin peered behind him to check there hadn’t been a sudden, silent downpour, and when she was satisfied, turned her attention back to him and the dog who, she realized, looked equally bedraggled. It was adorable, the kind of breed that could be mistaken for a cuddly toy, and she had to resist scooping it into her arms.
‘There’s been a leak,’ he said. ‘I mean, there is a leak, next door.’ His voice was deep and slightly breathless, his expression was apologetic, and his eyes, Robin couldn’t help noticing, were very green. He had a spread of freckles across a straight nose and tanned cheeks, and his short hair, which was plastered to his forehead, gave a suggestion of being chestnut brown when it wasn’t wet. The dark stain on his grey jumper looked like he’d been dumped under a bucket of water rather than an impromptu rain shower.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I – have I caused the leak?’
He frowned. ‘What? No, I don’t think so. I think the roof needs repairing.’
‘My roof?’ Robin stepped outside and peered up at the front of the guesthouse, her heart hammering with alarm. She was very close to him now. She caught a whiff of mildewed water and something else, something much more pleasant that brought back a childhood memory: full paper bags from the traditional sweet shop in town.
‘No,’ the man said, his voice now with a hint of frustration. ‘Next door. Look, I’m not accusing you of anything, and I’m sorry to knock so late, but you are still a guesthouse, aren’t you? The sign says so.’ He pointed upwards. Robin resisted the urge to look up at her own name sign, and instead stepped back inside, facing him.
‘Sorry.’ She rubbed her forehead. Damn Molly and that second bottle of wine. ‘Sorry, yes I am. You’re staying next door?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Well,’ he said, giving her a wry smile. ‘I was trying to, but it seems the house has other ideas. I can’t … I mean, I could stay there. It would probably be the manly thing to do, style it out on the floor in another of the rooms, do the whole Bear Grylls thing, but the place needs a complete overhaul. Then I remembered that, as luck would have it, my aunt lived next to a guesthouse.’
‘Your aunt?’ Robin had been about to tell him that she was pretty sure Bear Grylls grappled with terrains a bit more hard-core than seafront houses, but now she was distracted. ‘Tabitha was your aunt?’
The man’s eyes widened, and then his smile registered something that was either genuine happiness, or possibly relief now that he was finally getting some sense out of her. ‘Yes, yes she was. Hi.’ He held out his hand. ‘Will Nightingale.’
Robin took it. It was warm and firm and – unsurprisingly, given the rest of him – slightly damp. ‘Robin Brennan,’ she replied, trying to find similarities with the woman she had lived next door to for most of her childhood. Tabitha’s eyes had been hazel rather than startling green, but, along with a growing spread of grey, she’d had the woody, mid-brown hair that Robin suspected Will’s would be once it dried. And Robin remembered her neighbour once telling her that her maiden name was Nightingale, and that the only sadness she’d had in getting married to the love of her life was losing such a beautiful surname for the mundanity of becoming Mrs Thomas.
‘Hi, Robin.’ Will dropped his hand. ‘I don’t suppose, by any chance, you’ve got any rooms going? Just so I can be a wuss in comfort and deal with the leak tomorrow, in the daylight. And I know it’s a lot to ask, but could you also accept my dog? I don’t want Darcy to be left in a strange, empty house on her own.’
‘Yes,’ Robin said,
