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pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he helped her unload the trailer, but she turned down his offer of coffee or tea, saying she was due at the hospital again.
    â€˜Come over for supper again?’ she suggested.
    â€˜But I’ve got food in now.’
    â€˜You can’t feel much like cooking after doing all this,’ she said, looking round at the lounge with its one chair sitting incongruously on the newly exposed flagstones. ‘You must be exhausted.’
    Daniel couldn’t deny that he was tired. He merely shrugged and pursed his lips.
    â€˜Well, anyway. The offer’s there. It’s only shepherd’s pie, but there’s plenty of it, and I thought you might like to look round the stables afterwards. Come and meet the horses.’
    Daniel smiled.
    â€˜I would. Shall I come about seven?’
    â€˜Fine.’ Jenny went back out to the Land Rover. Settling in the driving seat, she looked at him through the open window. ‘Are you going to be all right here? I mean, it’s awfully isolated. I’d hate it on my own.’
    â€˜I’m not on my own, I’ve got Taz,’ he pointed out. ‘But it wouldn’t bother me, anyway. I’m used to it.’
    â€˜Don’t you have any family? Brothers and sisters, I mean. And what about your parents? Where do they live?’
    â€˜Two brothers and a sister. Simon and Mark work in London. Penny lives just down the road from Mum in Dorset, and I haven’t seen my father since I was eight.’
    â€˜Sorry. Am I being nosy?’
    â€˜It’s all right.’
    â€˜No, it isn’t. I’m dreadful. I’ll see you later. Bye.’ She turned the Land Rover and trailer in front of the cottage with the ease of long practice and, with a wave to Daniel, disappeared down the lane on her way to visit her husband.

FOUR
    A t a quarter past four the following afternoon, Daniel switched off the engine of the Iveco truck he’d been driving since eight o’clock that morning and leaned back wearily in his seat. It was not that the job differed so very greatly from the one he had been doing in Devon, but the area and the customers were unfamiliar and, in spite of the lorry’s satnav, there had been one or two drops that had given him problems. Even so, he had finished his allotted schedule ahead of time, which had to be a good thing.
    None of the other five drivers was back as yet and, unsure of the protocol at Summer Haulage, Daniel set about finding a hose and washing his truck down. As the weather had been dry for some days, it wasn’t strictly necessary, but in Fred Bowden’s depot the lorries were always kept spotless and it had become habit with Daniel, too.
    This done, he checked his paperwork, posted it through the office door and let himself into the converted cowshed that now did duty as the drivers’ base, with lockers, a shower room and toilet, and a sitting area known as the lounge, with microwave and facilities to make hot drinks.
    There he found the television broadcasting to an empty room, presumably left on by someone who had come back at lunchtime. Daniel switched it off and, in the absence of anything else to do, made himself a cup of coffee and settled down to read the local free advertiser, the front page of which featured pictures of a protest rally against a proposed wind farm, followed on page two with a plea for information about a spate of disappearances of family pets in the area and an article bewailing the closure of yet another rural post office.
    Shortly after five, he heard footsteps and voices outside, and the door opened to admit two of his fellow drivers. From the introductions earlier that day, he knew that the younger of the two, who was of medium height and build with a shaved head and tattoos on his forearms, was Derek Edwards, known to all and sundry as Dek. He led the way into the room, a half-spent cigarette drooping from his lower lip, and stopped just inside,