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Shufflebottom?”
    “Yes, indeed, ma’am. Good journey?”
    “Yes, I thank you. As you probably know, I am Rose Summer and this is Miss Daisy Levine.”
    “Is that your luggage?” asked the policeman nervously, looking at a pile of suitcases and hat boxes.
    “We decided to travel light so as not to occasion comment,” said Rose.
    Bert Shufflebottom signalled to an elderly porter. “Load the ladies’ bags on the trap, Harry.”
    Rose thought briefly of that other Harry. Did he miss her? What was he doing?
    The morning was cold, with patches of frost in the shadowy bits of the station platform.
    They climbed into the trap outside the station. Bert made a clucking noise and the pony moved off.
    “We don’t have all that much room, ladies,” said Bert. “I suggest you select the clothes you really need—we lead a simple life—and store the rest in the old stables at the back of the cottage.”
    “You do not live in the police station?” asked Rose.
    “Got a tidy cottage next door.”
    “How old are your children?”
    “Let me see, the eldest is Alfred—he’s just finishing school this year. He’s fifteen. Next is Lizzie, fourteen. Then there’s Geraldine. Her’s thirteen. After her comes Maisie at nine years. And then there’s the baby, Frankie, nine months. Frankie was unexpected like, but we ain’t complaining.”
    “We will do our best not to put Mrs. Shufflebottom to too much trouble.”
    “Oh, nothing bothers my Sally much. Looking forward to some grown-up female company, she is.”
    I’m not going to be able to bear this, thought Rose.
    They fell silent until, after a few miles, Bert pointed with his whip and said, “That be Drifton, in t’valley.”
    Rose looked down the road to a huddle of houses crouched beside a river.
    “And that’s the river Drif. Get some good trout there. If Alfred’s lucky with his rod arter school, we’ll have trout for tea. I likes a nice bit o’ trout.”
    Rose had expected Sally Shufflebottom to be an apple-cheeked countrywoman, but the woman waiting on the dirt road outside the cottage next to the police station was tall and thin with a severe mouth and grey hair scraped back into a bun.
    She came forward to greet them. “I’m Sally,” she said. “I’ve been instructed to call you just Rose and Daisy, not to occasion comment, like. My, my, look at all your luggage!”
    “I told them to take out a few things and put the rest in the stables,” said Bert. “T’won’t do to look too fine and grand.”
    The cottage was a rabbit warren of small rooms. There was a kitchen-cum-living-room with a great black range along one wall on which two pots were simmering. It was furnished with a horsehair sofa, a long table flanked by upright chairs, and two armchairs on either side of the range. The floor was covered in shiny green linoleum with two hooked rugs.
    “I’ll show you your room,” said Sally. She led the way along a stone-flagged passage and threw open a door. There was a double bed covered in a patchwork quilt, a dresser, a marble wash-stand holding a basin and ewer. A little table by the bed held a blue jug of wild flowers.
    Daisy, used to poverty, realized that Sally had gone to a lot of trouble. The patchwork quilt was new and the room was clean and aired.
    “Thank you,” she said, while Rose stared around her as if visiting a prison cell. “We’ll just sort out a few clothes and take the rest to the stables.”
    “I,” said Rose haughtily, “would like a bath.”
    “Bath day isn’t until Friday, when we fire up the copper in the wash-house,” said Sally. The copper was a huge copper container with a fire underneath for washing the laundry.
    Daisy threw a warning look at Rose. “I hear the river at the back of the house. We’ve got our swimming costumes. That’ll do.”
    “I’ll leave you to it. Dinner won’t be long.”
    “Dinner?” echoed Rose faintly when Sally had left the room.
    “They take dinner in the middle of the