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breath back. ‘What’s happened?’ he said again.
    Annie winced. ‘It was them,’ she pointed to the little fluffy gathering on her side of the river. ‘The ducklings.’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘The ducklings,’ she said again, a little quieter.
    ‘Oh for Christ’s sake!’ Matthew shook his head, his expression thunderous. Spitting a load of phlegm into the water, taking off his cap to wipe the sweat from his forehead, he pulled it on low again and took off at the same speed he’d halted at.
    Annie felt Holly sidle up next to her. ‘Good one.’
    Annie didn’t say anything.
    ‘You made a good impression there, Annie. Very nice.’

Chapter Six
    ‘I thought you were leaving us to it?’
    Annie had stood on the step for a second to pause and take a breath before walking into the cafe. Outside it had started to drizzle and as she entered she’d been hit by a familiar sense of warmth and the cosiness of childhood, but had resolutely ignored it. Instead she’d headed straight for the counter, but her path was obstructed by the fishermen’s labrador, who was lying across the central aisle again, and she was mid-step over the sleeping beast when Martha confronted her.
    ‘We’re fine as we are,’ said Martha, a plate of eggs and flabby bacon with a side of underdone soft toast balanced in her right hand. Two mugs of coffee in her left.
    Annie looked down at the floor and moved past her to take a seat on the bar stool. She leant her elbows on the counter and watched as Ludo fried eggs in the back kitchen and River emptied a steaming dishwasher.
    Holly slid onto the stool next to her and, after clocking the frosty atmosphere, poured herself and Annie a glass of water from the jug on the counter.
    Annie nodded, ‘Thanks. I might need something a little stronger.’
    Ludo glanced up from the eggs and waved a spatula at Holly, who smiled back a little guiltily; as if she knew a secret that they didn’t, and hated herself for it.
    Martha schlepped back from depositing her breakfasts, a scowl etched deep into the grooves on her face.
    ‘The thing is, Martha…’ Annie started, crossing her legs and turning to look back at the empty seats in the cafe. It was eleven o’clock on a Saturday and when she’d passed the pub, the garden had been chock-a-block with people all sipping cappuccinos and eating average-looking croissants but looking out at the stunning view of the river, the lighthouse that music producer Andrew Neil had had moved brick by brick in the seventies from some Hebridean island and turned into an infamous recording studio, and the dilapidated church beyond. She shifted in her seat and put her shoulders back, trying to look authoritative and confident. ‘The problem is that this place…’ She waved a hand nervously about the cafe, the look on Martha’s face like she might gobble her up any moment making her feel a bit sick. ‘It’s not been making a profit for a while and…well…’ She looked into the kitchen and saw Ludo’s shoulders had tensed and River, less subtly, had turned and was watching them from the dishwasher. ‘It’s just not a viable business at the moment.’
    She had spoken to Valtar on the phone during the week. ‘Is not good, Annie. Not good at all,’ he’d said and she could hear her mother in the background saying that she shouldn’t feel under any obligation to take it on.
    Annie bit her lip and traced the pattern in the counter laminate rather than look Martha in the eye. ‘I think we need to make some changes, Martha. Otherwise, well—’
    River came to stand next to Martha and Ludo folded his arms across the hatch. ‘You gonna fire us?’ he said, spatula in hand, cutting to the chase.
    Annie rolled her lips together and winced.
    She watched Martha swallow. At six foot and seventy, Martha was terrifying and always had been. She had frizzy grey hair tied tight in a bun, a huge bosom, and her face was creased with crinkles and wrinkles. She’d been in the RAF and