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She blew him a kiss instead. ‘Tom . . . beyond loving you, I want you to know how much I completely adore you.’

‘Now and forever,’ he said.

Fleur left the room with a heart fuller than she could ever have dreamed. She was almost dizzy with happiness and gave the publican a broad, bright smile.

‘You look well for sitting in a chair all night, Miss Appleby.’

She enjoyed a guilt-ridden private smile as she lifted her bag. ‘I had a good book to keep me company while our patient slept,’ she fibbed, permitting herself the white lie for the greater good. ‘He’s only just woken and seems brighter, but I think a good sleep has tricked him into feeling stronger than he actually is.’

‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’

‘You will? You’re very kind. Here, I’m leaving some money for food – it would be wonderful if you could send up some soup, bread, cheese, that sort of thing, and perhaps a bottle of healing ale tonight?’ She even winked, surprising herself; how lovely the world felt right now. ‘And here’s our number at Appleby’s. Will you ring me if he worsens or needs anything?’

‘No worries,’ the man said. ‘It’s Thursday – pay day – so you can imagine how busy it will be later on. My wife will organise some food. I’ll send one of the kids up to check on him. Does he need a doctor?’

‘No, no, nothing like that. Just rest now while his body does what it knows it has to do. That’s what the nurses at the hospital told me, anyway. I’ll be back soon enough.’

‘Righto, Miss Appleby.’

She smiled and felt an almost childish desire to skip out of the pub and all the way down the Port Road home. She didn’t, but she was humming the tune that she and Tom had danced to at the Palais. That melody would hold special meaning for her from now on. The distracted, vaguely smug smile held until she caught sight of the familiar black saloon car of the local doctor outside Appleby’s. Her expression dropped suddenly, she stopped moving and there was a sensation of her organs, skeleton, flesh, mind – all of her – instantly deflating, as though it no longer had the equipment that held it straight and alert.

She’d encountered that car so many times in her professional dealings. The doctor was a lovely man, desperately overworked, paid nominally and sometimes too quick to ascribe a death based on everything he knew about his patients, rather than probing more rigorously. He was responsible for so many, not just day-to-day health needs in the community, but the more serious patients in the hospital, too. It was too much for one man, she understood, and his presence at a home might be a simple house call but was, more often, connected with dying.

An irrational and cruel thought ghosted that she hoped it was Irma, toppled down the stairs, fallen in the garden, or suffering an unexpected episode that had stopped her breathing. Fleur immediately chastised herself for allowing such heartlessness into her mind. She had not been raised that way and Mae would be ashamed, but Fleur, despite her guilt, knew this was the inherent defence system that everyone possessed. It was triggered to protect her from what her mind already knew and didn’t want to face – the death of her father. And she knew as she began to run that he was already gone.

She burst into the house. Looking around, she could see only Nan peering out from the kitchen with watery eyes. Fleur didn’t want to ask; she couldn’t hear it from their cook. Instead she ran upstairs to find Irma, thanking the doctor.

‘I am indeed deeply sorry for your loss,’ he said as Fleur arrived onto the landing with a wild-eyed stare. ‘Henry Appleby was of those one-in-a-million men,’ he added, covering Irma’s fat hands with his large, bony ones.

‘No!’ Fleur uttered and covered her mouth with both hands to stop a shriek.

‘Oh, Fleur. My angel. My darling. I’m so sorry.’ Irma rushed to her side, a study in indulgent sympathy.

Fleur felt those sausage fingers clutch at the top of her arm, as the doctor eyed her uncomfortably, dipping his gaze in respect. ‘Good morning, Fleur. I’m so sorry.’

‘Dad’s dead?’ She still said it, hoping she could somehow will it not to be true. Her lips felt numb. She couldn’t bear for Irma to touch her, and she shook off her hold.

The doctor cleared his throat. ‘Yes, Fleur. I’m very sorry to tell you that your father has succumbed to what was probably a raft of underlying complaints connected to cirrhosis of the liver.’

‘No, no, that’s not right.’

‘Oh, Fleur.’ Irma reached tenderly towards her.

She batted away Irma’s arms, encased like bulging meat in the tight sleeve of her dress. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she snarled.

‘Oh, my dear, I know you’re—’

Fleur ignored her, pushing past them both to confront her father, lying in his bed, the sheet pulled up neatly to his shoulders. He looked grey. Absently, she estimated he had died around three hours earlier. A helpless glance at her watch told her it was nearing nine. So before six, perhaps, as the birds had become noisy in their chorus, her father had sighed his last breath.

‘He went quietly, Fleur darling, your name on his lips to the last,’ Irma said in a soppy voice dripping with fake sympathy. ‘Oh, my darling, darling, husband,’ she wept, leaning against the door jamb. ‘What am I going to do?’

Get rich? Fleur thought, relieved she hadn’t uttered it. She hated this mindset of hers. Her father was lifeless and all she could feel was hate, instead of the love that she knew was desperately trying to ease past her despair to flood her, an almost drug-like defence for the bereaved. She knew how it went. People in true grief could feel utterly numb for days, unable to feel much at all because the angst ran so deep, so wide in their minds. If they moved, it was almost like they were one of the robots she’d seen in the shops. Functioning – sometimes rather well, with an almost daunting brightness – staying busy until the funeral and then the ‘crash’ would arrive into melancholy when all the architecture of the funeral arrangements and flurry of family and friends began to disappear. Others fell into a group that she believed she might belong to. They didn’t really hit that false spiritedness; instead, they didn’t really see anything, not engaging, their actions forced from memory rather than conscious movements. She was in an early stage of shocked denial and although she recognised it for what it was, she could do nothing to change it.

The doctor arrived at her side and risked touching her shoulder. ‘To be precise, it’s my opinion that Henry actually died of poisoning.’

‘But—’ Fleur began in a whisper.

‘It was last night’s oysters. Irma thinks they might have been off.’ He looked over at Fleur’s stepmother, who nodded in agreement and stepped into the room towards them.