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anything as long as I couldn’t see it. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand.
    “I’m Jess Derbyshire,” she said, loud enough for me to hear. “I’ve called Dr. Coleman. He’s with a patient but he’s promised to come straight on when he’s finished.” There was a hint of a Dorset burr in her voice, but it was the deepness of her register that struck me the most. She seemed to want to sound like a man as well as dress like one.
    I thought if I didn’t reply she might go away.
    “Shutting your eyes won’t help,” she said. “You need to open your window. It’s too hot in there.” I heard something tap against the glass. “I’ve brought a bottle of water for you.”
    Desperate for something to drink, I opened my eyes a crack and met her unwelcome stare again. The sun was beating relentlessly down on the roof and my hair was plastered to my scalp with sweat. She waited while I lowered the window four inches, then passed the bottle through before nodding towards the door of the house. She twisted her hand as if to indicate that she was going to unlock it, then moved away to kneel on the doorstep. I watched her take a can of WD-40 from her toolbox and spray a fine mist into the lock before sitting back on her heels.
    In a funny sort of way she reminded me of Adelina, small and neat and competent, but without the Italian’s expressiveness. Jess’s movements were economical and spare, as if the method of releasing a key was something she’d practised for years. And perhaps she had.
    “It always sticks,” she said, stooping to talk through the window. “Lily never used it…she bolted the door inside and came in and out through the scullery. The oil takes about ten minutes to work. Were you given any other keys? There should be a mortise and a Yale for the back door.”
    I glanced at an envelope on the passenger seat.
    She followed my gaze. “May I have them?” she asked, holding out her hand.
    I shook my head.
    “Try counting birds,” she said abruptly. “It always worked for me. By the time I got to twenty, I’d usually forgotten why I’d started.” Her dark eyes searched my face for a moment before, with a shrug, she went back to the doorstep and squatted on her haunches in front of it. After a while she took a pair of pliers from her toolbox and used them to tease the key back and forth. When she finally managed to turn it, she twisted the handle and disappeared inside. A few seconds later, a light came on in the hall. After that, she moved along the ground floor, opening windows to let in the fresh air.
    I wanted to get out and shout at her. Stop interfering. Who’s going to close the place up again after I’ve left? But I’d become so comfortable with doing nothing that that’s what I continued to do. I did watch the birds, however. I couldn’t avoid it. The garden was alive with them. Flocks of house-sparrows, endangered in the cities, chattered and darted about the trees, while swallows and house-martins flashed in and out of nests beneath the eaves.
    When Jess reappeared, she hunkered down beside my door to put herself on the same level as me. “The Aga needs lighting. Do you want me to show you how to do it?”
    I might have gone on ignoring her if I’d cared less about seeming rude or looking foolish, so perhaps counting birds did work. I ran my tongue around my mouth to produce some saliva. “No, thank you.”
    She tipped her chin towards the envelope. “Are there any instructions in there?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “If Madeleine wrote them, you won’t be able to light the Aga yourself. She doesn’t even know how to spark the ignition, let alone prime the burner.”
    It was on the tip of my tongue to ask who Madeleine was, or even Lily, the name she’d mentioned earlier, but there was no point. “I’m not staying,” I told her.
    She didn’t seem surprised. “You’ll need your car keys then.”
    I nodded.
    She fished them out of her pocket and held them up. “I