1

~ To remove fingerprints and smears from stainless steel surfaces, wipe with a little baby oil on a clean cloth.

T he first text appeared while I was showing the Pedersen family around what the rest of the office had taken to calling the Doom Barn, and which I was currently calling ‘a unique combination of rural tradition and ultramodern comfort'.

It was certainly unique. Blackberry Barn was a hulking conversion that looked unnervingly like Darth Vader in photographs, no matter what angle we tried to take them from. It was huge. It was clad in dark Siberian larch. And it was hard to make a positive of the original owners' decision to build the conservatory around a stone cider press the size of a small car instead of removing it. But if anyone could shift this unfortunately located, overpriced aircraft hangar of a home, it was me.

So far, the viewing had been going to plan. I'd started in the impressive kitchen-diner which ran almost the full length of the barn, and their reactions had been as I'd anticipated: Steve Pedersen had nodded thoughtfully at the concealed appliances, while his wife Katherine warmed to the clinical smoothness of everything, once I'd mentioned how easy it was to clean. I was reeling off the mod cons when I was interrupted by the message alert. Robyn. We need to talk.

No name, no recognisable number. I swallowed as my brain flipped hurriedly through several possibilities.

Had Diana the office manager opened my secret filing drawer, the one where my paperwork was concealed for urgent sorting?

Or was it Cleo, complaining about the state of a client's house? Some of the end-of-tenancy cleaning jobs I put her way were a bit hard-going. But she had her own ringtone alert on my phone, and she never texted me when she could call and yell directly into my ear.

Or was it Johnny from the office, trying to put me off my stride? That was more likely. Our manager, Dean, was offering a prize for the first person to get an offer on the table for the Doom Barn.

As the Pedersens inspected the soft-close triple oven, my guilty conscience slid sideways to a couple of longshots: Tyler, the conveyancer I'd had a few dinners with then ghosted several months ago? Or Doug, ditto (but antique dealer)? I wasn't great at break-ups.

Another text followed. How about tomorrow night? I have exciting news on the architect.

And then I knew exactly who it was and my heart corrected its anxious plunge and swooped upwards like a fairground swingboat. It was Mitch Maitland, calling about the Secret Project. I inadvertently let out a squeak of excitement, and Steve Pedersen asked me if everything was all right.

I shoved the phone in my pocket and adjusted my expression.

Don't think about Mitch right now, I reminded myself as I launched back into presentation mode, just sell this house . But hearing from Mitch gave my pitch an extra something. Hysterical excitement. I abandoned the explanation of the central hoovering system and went for the emotional approach instead.

‘You know, I probably shouldn't have favourite properties,' I confided, ‘but what I really love about this place is that it's a real year-round home.' I gestured towards the garden. ‘It's stunning now in the spring, with that cherry blossom by the front door, and the outdoor kitchen is fabulous in summer, but winters would be so cosy in here too! You've got the height for a full-size Christmas tree in here and one in the hall. With your own holly and ivy from the orchard!'

I knew there was holly, ivy and mistletoe in the orchard because we'd been trying to sell Blackberry Barn since last August. It was now April.

‘And hopbines along the oak beams!' Katherine exclaimed, as if she could suddenly see them, and we nodded happily, me most of all.

I could tell that the Pedersens were almost convinced that they and this cavernous barn were an ideal match. Katherine seemed taken with the barn's ‘aspirational entertaining area', her hand lingering on the black quartz work surface that the previous viewer had said, in feedback, made the kitchen look like ‘a goth operating theatre'. Steve had agreed with me that the timber-framed garden room would make an impressive backdrop for his Zoom calls, and that the cellar was ideal for a hobby cave, say, for example, a massive train set. It was perfect for them. Perfect.

None of the above was a coincidence, of course. I'd done my homework, which was as simple as having a nice chat. I liked talking and I liked houses, so my job wasn't so hard, really. I'd spent ten minutes with Katherine while we booked in the viewing and in that short time I'd learned that she was a data analyst who dreamed of setting up her own gluten-free cake business; that Steve worked remotely for an American law firm; that they needed space because his train set took up their entire garage; that they both wanted a forever home – dogs, attics, ‘space for full-height Christmas tree', the lot.

This was the forty-third house they'd viewed. The forty- third. I hadn't as yet managed to winkle out what exactly it was that they so far hadn't managed to find. A unicorn stable, maybe.

Katherine's phone rang, and as she answered it a pained expression crossed her face. ‘I'm sorry, Robyn,' she said. ‘Would you excuse me for a second?'

And as she hurried out, I observed Steve's shoulders sag, then brace against whatever was coming … Was I about to find out the reason for their extreme fussiness?

‘We thought it would save time to do the viewings on our own,' he explained. ‘They're so … fussy about random stuff but I suppose it's only fair – they'll be living here too …'

I suddenly knew where this was going. His difficult mother? Her controlling father?

‘I apologise in advance,' Steve blurted out, as the sound of indignant squabbling came into earshot.

The current owners of Blackberry Barn had spent a fortune and used two different builders to create a bathroom straight out of an interior design magazine. The focal point was a Victorian slipper bath with a wrought-iron bookrest, but it had to compete with the shimmery green tiles lining the walk-in shower, Jack and Jill basins, Jack and Jill lavatories (no, me neither), and a reclaimed chandelier from a stately home in Ireland. Even the grout was specially imported from … somewhere that made expensive grout. I forget exactly where.

‘Isn't this gorgeous?' I asked rhetorically, because it truly was. I loved a good bathroom.

‘You had me at slipper bath,' breathed Katherine, touching the brass taps with a reverential fingertip.

Steve gave it an appreciative nod, then went back out onto the landing to do the pointless knuckle-rapping of plaster so beloved of the male property viewer.

‘Baths are gross,' announced Eva, the elder Pedersen child. ‘You're basically sitting in your own dead skin.'

She was ten. We'd established that as soon as she burst in with her sister, Millie, in tow. Millie was eight. Viewing houses was ‘boring', but waiting in a car with no phone signal or Wi-Fi code was ‘borderline child abuse'.

Katherine winced. ‘ Eva . It's a lovely bath. And look at the shower. It's like a mermaid's shower, isn't it?'

Eva smirked and cast a sidelong glance from under her dark lashes at Millie, who covertly kicked the bath's ornate leg.

‘Don't kick the bath, Millie,' said Katherine automatically.

I checked my phone, which was buzzing in my pocket. Another text, this time from the office. Are you going to tell them?

It was from Johnny. I texted back: It's OK, they've seen the cider press. They're going to convert it into a cocktail bar.

He texted back immediately: I'm not talking about the cider press!!! Dean says we have to be completely transparent with viewers about the issues.

I turned my phone off and followed Steve out to the landing, while Millie and Eva's bickering filtered through from the bathroom. I recognised the familiar spiralling whine of complaints (and sotto voce hiss of parental refereeing) from many arguments in which Cleo inevitably got the weary sigh from Mum while I got the narrowed eyes and occasionally a sharp tap. Although she denies this.

Steve was gazing at the solid beams and I gave him a few moments to spot the original features for himself. ‘So much history! This wood must be centuries old!'

‘Properties like this don't come along very often,' I said, truthfully.

‘So what I don't get is why it's been on the market for nine months.'

‘But she started it …' wailed someone in the bathroom, followed by a shrill and accusatory, ‘Ow!'

‘And I can see it's been sold three times in the last six years.' Steve raised his voice to be heard over the resulting outburst. ‘Be honest with me, Robyn – is there a problem you're not telling us about?'

I wasn't daft: I had a selection of good reasons ready to go.

‘Barn conversions aren't for everyone,' I explained. ‘Some people find them too open-plan if they have family they want to get away – I mean, if they need quiet space. And while who wouldn't love a garden this size, the reality is that it requires a bit of upkeep which, again, some people don't want. Did I mention that the vendors are throwing in their ride-on mower, though? Have you ever been on one? Ride-on mowers are great fun – this one has a drinks holder!'

Steve was momentarily distracted by the thought of a ride-on mower, but he had the bit between his teeth. ‘The big question for me, I guess is … they did a lot of work, so why not stay and enjoy it?'

‘Well …'

‘I'm unusually sensitive to atmospheres in houses,' he continued, ‘and I did get a funny feeling in the kitchen. So please – you can tell me the truth …'

For a second, I wondered if he'd already spoken to Johnny in the office. I won't lie, I was surprised because personally I thought the stories were a lot of old pony, but Steve seemed genuinely spooked.

Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Are they getting divorced?'

I breathed again.

‘I know, I know, client confidentiality and all that, but we looked at a house in Hartley, absolutely ideal on paper …' Steve shook his head as if too discreet to reveal exactly what the problem had been. ‘Bad vibes.'

Katherine appeared at his shoulder, and her irritated expression told me instantly that Steve's ‘sensitivity' was the reason they'd seen forty-three houses without an offer. That and their need for train-set space.

‘No,' I said, firmly. ‘The vendors are not getting divorced. Mrs Brady has accepted a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity in Glasgow and it's simply too far to commute. It's a reluctant sale.'

Eva and Millie materialised behind their parents. They were doing that sisterly glance-nudge-muttered-trigger-word sniggering routine that had driven my own mother so demented she locked herself in the car for three hours during one family holiday in Dorset. The earlier squabbles had vanished, replaced by shared-joke suppressed giggles.

I saw Eva mouth ‘bad vibes' at Millie and, just like I had when my big sister shared a secret joke with me, Millie dissolved into silent laughter.

It gave me an unexpected burst of nostalgia. At their age, Cleo and I were the closest we'd ever been and the memory of that summer holiday in Dorset rushed back: the smell of Mum's spray sun cream, Cleo's Body Shop perfume oil (so sophisticated), scorched skin against car seats, that giddy feeling in my stomach I always got when Cleo made me laugh without even speaking, just by doing That Look.

As we'd grown up our relationship had waxed and waned – sometimes close, sometimes barely talking – but at heart we were those two telepathically conniving little girls, sharing crisps and secret code words. Or at least that's how I felt.

Millie nudged Eva, flashed a look at me and said something under her breath that made Eva widen her eyes theatrically. Then they both shook with mirth.

I turned back to the adults. As Dean would have reminded me, honesty at this point was the best tactic, as long as you were being honest about something . ‘Between ourselves, a couple of offers have fallen through because of chains collapsing. No one's fault, but still, disappointing for everyone. Might that be what you're picking up, Steve? Disappointment?'

He nodded, pleased to be right. ‘And I suppose this was a barn, with animals …'

It was a cider barn. I wasn't sure apples left psychic traces of distress.

‘And nothing problematic has emerged in surveys?' Katherine asked. ‘Like … damp? Or flooding?'

‘Anything that isn't original eighteenth-century is brand new,' I reassured her. ‘They've even installed a heat pump and solar panels on the garden office.'

The Pedersens exchanged glances and I saw the glint in their eyes. They looked very much like a couple considering an offer.

Tell them about the slamming doors , protested the diligent voice of my inner estate agent. You have to tell them about the Woman in Grey.

I frowned. The Woman in Grey was, as far as I was concerned, utter nonsense that the owners previous to the Bradys had invented to make their common-or-garden barn sound more interesting. If the neighbours hadn't told the Bradys, then they'd never have been looking out for slamming doors and ‘cold spots'.

I mean, show me a house in the country that doesn't have a cold spot. And a draughty spot. And a spot where flies mysteriously go to die. It's what country houses are like .

Still, I struggled with my conscience. They were about to spend a lot of money. They had two children. And it was my professional duty to give them all the facts.

But what facts? ‘Funny feelings' weren't facts. It was hardly something you could tick on the declaration form: ‘We took the neighbours to court over the wheelie bins, and there's a spectral nun.' Unexplained cold spots were a matter for the surveyors, not an estate agent.

Eva was staring at me, her head on one side. ‘You've gone red,' she observed. ‘Are you menopausal? My form teacher is menopausal and she has to carry a fan round with her, and when she thinks no one's looking, she puts it …'

‘Eva!' said Steve and Katherine simultaneously.

I shoved the protesting voice in my head to one side. I needed to make this sale. I wanted the case of beer, and more importantly, I needed to impress Dean because I was already on a warning for what he called ‘slack admin'.

(For the record, I was not menopausal. Not quite yet.)

‘Shall I give you a moment to walk around on your own?' I asked the adults sweetly, then turned to Millie and Eva. ‘Girls, do you want to see something amazing?'

‘No,' said Eva, spinning on her heel and marching back to press buttons on the electric curtains.

‘Yes, please,' said Millie.

So I showed Millie the secret stairs down to the wine cellar, and apparently that was what swung the deal. If Millie spotted the Woman in Grey while we were down there, she didn't let on.

It was nearly four o'clock by the time I waved the Pedersens off, and I contemplated going back to the office without much enthusiasm.

It was the right thing to do. The pile of paperwork in my desk was now so high I had to shove it down before locking the drawer; I fully intended to find a quiet time to blitz through it, but I didn't want an audience for the associated phone calls, most of which would have to begin with, ‘Sorry for taking so long to get back you …' followed by an elaborate excuse. A big part of my job was chasing people who didn't always enjoy being chased – clients, solicitors, sometimes other estate agents – and I hated it. Johnny, on the desk opposite mine, had developed an annoying habit of snorting ostentatiously at my excuses, often so loudly I had to pretend it was traffic outside.

I gripped the wheel and tried to dredge up the motivation to go back. It wasn't the admin as much as the shame of how late it was. Plus, I wasn't quite sure exactly how bad the problem was because I could never look straight at it, just in small peeks.

You're a grown woman, Robyn , I told myself. Every day you put it off, the worse it gets .

Organisation, or lack of, was my Achilles heel. It always had been. When I'd started at Marsh it would take ten minutes and I could make some calls from the car. If I stayed in this traffic jam, it could take half an hour to get back to the high street, and the office might be closed. I'd have to come home anyway, plus I'd have wasted a whole hour.

My good intentions were already slipping when my phone rang, and the decision was removed from my hands.

‘Where are you?' demanded Cleo. ‘And why aren't you here?'

I had a good reason for my life being somewhat disorganised at the moment: in the space of a few weeks, I'd sold my own flat – completed in an agency record time, I might add – and moved into what I hoped would be temporary rental accommodation. I'd only been there a week, and hadn't yet learned the cut-throughs or neighbourly parking routines, hence it took me a while to find a parking space. I ended up leaving the car two streets away, and walking back to Duncannon Avenue as fast as I could in my work heels, my hobbling pace spurred by the thought of Cleo's mounting impatience and two text reminders from her of all the other places she had to be.

I rounded the corner and saw my sister leaning against the railing on my front doorstep from the end of the street. Cleo's hair always drew the eye. She had a bright white-blonde bob, which she wore either swirled round her head in a candyfloss Marilyn Monroe blow-dry (spotted headscarf optional) or, off duty, in a mini ponytail. It was glamorous, attention-grabbing, uncompromising and high maintenance. Cleo's mission statement, basically.

Standing next to her was our mum, Melanie. Petite, like Cleo; dark-haired, like me; strong eyebrows, like both of us.

Mum waved and Cleo stopped texting, or whatever she was doing on her phone, and shouted, ‘What time do you call this?' so loud that a dog walker on the other side of the street jumped and looked around nervously.

‘I couldn't find anywhere to park.' I hurried towards them before Cleo could shout any more of my business to the neighbours. If I'd learned one thing in my job it was to make sure you kept the neighbours on side, or at the very least, gave them nothing to hold against you later.

‘We've brought your things,' said Mum, gesturing to the boxes and bags at her feet. ‘Cleo's got the rest in the boot.'

Cleo was alternating between protective glances at her black Range Rover, and more suspicious ones up and down the street.

I paused in unlocking the door. ‘Don't worry, Cleo. We haven't had any carjackings recently. My car hasn't even been leafleted.'

‘Your car's filthy, Robyn. No one wants to sell a pizza that much,' she muttered, but followed me inside, not even sighing with effort as she heaved four large bags up two flights of stairs to my new accommodation.

Ideally I would have arrived home half an hour earlier to tidy up before Mum and Cleo saw my flat for the first time.

It's not that it was particularly messy – and I had just moved in – but Mum's house always looked like a show home, and Cleo had not only inherited Mum's tidiness but had created a business out of it. Taylor Maid offered domestic cleaning and end-of-tenancy blitzes, a service I frequently engaged on behalf of Marsh within a year, she'd set up a cleaning business with her own perky blonde self as the cartoon logo. Mum had drawn it for her to save money. Think Tinkerbell with a squeegee and an attitude.

Cleo and Elliot were, it was commonly agreed, made for each other. Elliot was as determined and ambitious as Cleo, going from mechanic to head mechanic to manager, then onto bigger and better things, until he was the youngest divisional director in the country for a leading recovery network. They had it all – three lively boys, house in a good street, two holidays a year, his and hers 4×4s – until one morning Cleo turned up on our doorstep and announced that she'd kicked Elliot out.

‘We've grown apart,' was the sum total of her explanation.

I won't lie: it was a messy split. Their break-up made everyone feel discombobulated and a year on, it still felt wrong. True to her tidying-up instincts, Cleo managed to put a sort of gloss on their ‘conscious uncoupling' for my nephews, Orson, Alfie and Wesley, while saving her real feelings for me and Mum. She didn't spare us her thoughts about Elliot. You could have unblocked drains with them. His workaholicism. His selfishness. His lack of support for her as an individual. His inability to listen. His snoring. His breathing. His bucket of worms in the garage. (To be fair, Elliot was an angler.)

Although, as Dad said in an unguarded moment, ‘There are three sides to every story. His side, her side and the truth.'

To which Mum said, ‘Paul!' and I said nothing.

Privately, I also thought there was more to it than Cleo was letting on. She'd always had a take-no-prisoners approach to life, but there'd been a brittle edge to her for a while now, as if she was constantly alert for reasons to be pissed off. Since the split, I'd tried to coax her over for a night in, one with a Chinese takeaway over-order, a Baileys too many and a taxi home, but she was always too busy. Didn't I know she'd given up ultra-processed foods, or had to get up early to do a VAT return or wash the boys' PE kits?

It didn't help that Elliot had talked me into interceding with Cleo on his behalf, early on in the separation when she was refusing to talk to him. He'd looked so tearful and distraught that I couldn't refuse. He had been part of my family for over twenty years. A mistake, as it turned out.

‘You need to decide whose side you're on!' Cleo yelled at me, and I'd backed off. There was no such thing as political neutrality with Cleo.

She dumped the bags on the sofa, and gazed round the ‘cosy' sitting room.

I followed her gaze and flinched at the mess. It didn't help that most of the furniture was covered in boxes and random carrier bags; I'd had to move out of my own flat at short notice, shoving my worldly goods into whatever came to hand. A ‘man with a van' and his mate had brought the essentials and the rest had been piled into Mum's garage. ‘For a limited time,' she'd warned me, as I struggled to stack my plastic crates of shoes and hair masks on top of her spare chest freezer.

‘It'll be better when I've unpacked,' I said, defensively. ‘But I've been busy.'

Cleo raised a microbladed eyebrow. ‘Surely it's worth spending a few hours to get your life in order?'

‘Cleo, I've literally been coming home and falling asleep. It's stressful, moving.'

‘Of course it is, love.' Mum hesitated, then placed the weeping fig she was carrying on a box just away from the window. She'd mercy-grabbed the struggling house plants from my flat and repotted them ‘to save me a job' – a job I hadn't been aware should be on my list. The weeping fig wasn't my only plant. I had a weeping begonia, a weeping umbrella tree and two positively sobbing succulents. My record with plant life was woeful, but it didn't stop me buying them from Tesco. Thriving house plants were an index of successful domestic life, like a decent sofa and a mortar and pestle.

‘Why don't I pop the kettle on? Make us a cup of tea while you two empty the car?' She paused and added, ‘You … have got a kettle?'

‘Yes, Mum,' I said. ‘And there's milk in the fridge. It's fresh, before you sniff it.'

‘I wasn't going to,' she protested, but her shifty expression said otherwise.

I could hear Cleo bouncing down the stairs in her white Stan Smith trainers, ready to punch any carjackers in the face; she spent an hour most days at the gym at one violent cardio class or another. Regular gym attendance. That was another sign of being a proper adult.

I trailed after her, already out of breath, trying to work out where I could put the rest of the boxes. It looked like I wasn't going to be making those calls to clients this evening. I also knew I'd be having anxiety dreams about being buried alive in cardboard.

I'll get up an hour early, I promised myself. I'll definitely get things sorted out in the morning.

From the piercing scent of citrussy chemicals drifting from the kitchen, Mum had made a discreet start on cleaning while we dragged the last of the boxes up. More troublingly, I didn't have any Cif in the flat, which meant she'd come equipped.

She slammed the dishwasher closed as I bustled into the kitchen and handed me a tray of mugs to take through to the sitting room. ‘I brought you some provisions,' she said, brandishing some chocolate digestives, ‘in case you hadn't had time to go shopping.'

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘And thank you for whatever cleaning you've just done.'

She flushed. ‘If you'd let me know, we could have come over and given the place a proper scrubbing when you moved in.'

‘No, we couldn't,' interjected Cleo from the sitting room. ‘I'm rushed off my feet right now. Robyn's perfectly capable of cleaning her own flat.'

‘I'm not,' I said. ‘You know I'm not.'

‘Stop saying that, as if being messy is some kind of protected characteristic …' Cleo was talking but, as I moved down the hall with the tea, stepping over the bin bags, I could see her swiping dust off the windowsills with my gym T-shirt. She literally couldn't help herself.

I put the tray down on the coffee table and cleared the box of toiletries off a chair so Mum could sit down. Then I dumped my weighted blanket off the sofa, sat down and glared at Cleo. I couldn't work out whether I wanted her to stop cleaning, because it just felt so pointed, or whether I wanted her to carry on, because I was never going to get round to dusting the woodwork myself.

‘I have to say, Robyn, I still don't understand why you rushed into this,' said Mum. ‘I thought you liked that flat of yours.'

‘I did,' I said, and had a sudden gulp of regret.

I loved my flat. It was the final link to a part of my life that felt further and further away with every month that passed.

When you hear the words ‘child actor' you tend to think of precocious tap-dancing poppets screeching inappropriate show tunes and then careering into rehab, via Only Fans. That wasn't me: I became a child actor mainly because I had nothing to do in the holidays. When I was eight Mum enrolled me in a drama summer school (Cleo had friends so didn't need to go) the same week a London casting director happened to be scouting background kids for a very big, very famous film. I had two lines, but I was on set for most of the school holidays and a few weekends, and I earned a stack of cash, tax-free, salted away by Mum into an inaccessible bank account.

After that, I was in two seasons of a children's show called The School for Detectives, playing a know-it-all junior Miss Marple, and I was in the background (again) of a Christmas advert for Waitrose which was gleefully re-enacted by my classmates until roughly Easter. But it's surprising how quickly kids lose interest in you being on television; having met Ant and Dec did little for my popularity. Because I was diligent, and scared of falling behind, I fitted everything in, creating list after list, working late at weekends so as not to let anyone down, but Dad drew the line when my GCSEs started.

‘You can always come back to acting,' he said, and to be honest, I was relieved. It was fun at first – I liked pretending to be someone other than myself, and my agent, Geraldine, shielded me from criticism, as well as negotiating Equity adult rates for me – but I found learning lines a struggle, and routinely vomited with nerves before auditions.

Of course, when I was ready to go back to acting after university, everything had changed. I wasn't cute anymore; I was self-conscious and self-critical. I failed to get into any of the drama schools I applied for. To pay the bills, I temped at an estate agency, and slowly that turned into a full-time job, helped by the fact that nearly every client thought they already knew me from somewhere. Geraldine sent me a kind letter, asking if she should stop sending me audition info, and I sent her some advice about buy-to-lets and didn't renew my Equity membership.

So that was my acting career, done and dusted before my braces came off. I made a decent living as an estate agent, but it was thanks to my parents' financial caution and an ability to cry on demand that I was eventually able to buy my own flat. A flat that someone had just offered to buy for two and a half times what I'd paid for it, in cash.

‘It was an offer I couldn't refuse,' I explained. ‘Dean was selling a house for a divorcing couple, the husband wanted to stay local so he could share childcare, and there was absolutely nothing on the market. Dean asked if I'd be prepared to sell mine and …' I shrugged. ‘He was offering crazy money.'

‘How much?' asked Cleo.

‘Crazy money,' I repeated.

‘And you moved, just like that?' Mum asked, incredulously.

Mum and Dad hated change. Dad nearly went into a decline when they switched the five-pound notes to plastic.

‘It's in the catchment area for St Bridget's.' Cleo snapped a digestive in two and ate the smaller half, leaving the bigger portion for me and Mum to eye up. ‘I had a client who bribed her son's piano teacher to have her post delivered there, so they could claim eligibility.'

Mum looked at me, horrified, and I nodded in confirmation. I'd bought it on the ‘worst flat in the best area' principle, but the chances of me having a child in the next ten years, let alone one academic enough to get into St Bridget's, were zero. It didn't seem worth turning down such a ridiculous offer on the off chance that some yummy mummy might bribe me to be a postbox.

‘Anyway,' I said, ‘it's worked out perfectly. I'm in a strong position now – I've got cash in the bank, I can move quickly …'

‘Because you're still basically packed-up,' Cleo observed.

I glared at her.

‘It's such a lot of money to have sitting there in the bank, though.' Mum frowned anxiously. ‘Are you getting proper advice? Your dad's concerned.'

To be honest, it was a significant chunk of money, especially for someone on my salary, but I dealt with much bigger mortgages and deposits day in, day out. I wasn't blasé about it, just not freaked out in the same way Mum was. ‘It's fine,' I reassured her. ‘I know what I'm doing. I know this place is a bit, um, basic, but I didn't want to eat into my capital while I'm waiting for the right property to come onto the market.'

‘You should get on to whoever you're renting it from and find out who their end-of-tenancy cleaners are,' said Cleo. ‘They could do with a kick up the arse. Have you seen the state of the bathroom?'

I hadn't realised she'd been in the bathroom. Cleo moved silently and discreetly, noticing everything – and not just the tidelines and fingerprints.

‘I suppose it's fine for now,' Mum said, a bit too quickly, ‘but it needs a proper scrub before you unpack. You know what it's like, you never get round to it once you're settled in.'

‘A proper scrub,' Cleo repeated.

They both looked at me with expectant faces.

‘I'm not going to spend the weekend up to my elbows in soapy water, if that's what you're thinking,' I said, robustly. ‘For one thing I'm run off my feet at work, and for another, I'm happy to pay someone to do it properly.'

‘But Robyn …'

‘I'm a terrible cleaner. I don't enjoy it like you two do. I get distracted. I get bored. Because it is boring.'

Cleo shook her head, sadly. ‘You're scared of ruining your nails.'

‘If you knew how much I spent on these nails, you'd be the same,' I retorted. ‘I have to look groomed for work.'

‘These nails are capable of a hard day's work.' She brandished her own flawless manicure.

‘You don't do any actual scrubbing ,' I pointed out. ‘You're more likely to break a nail phoning a client to explain their cleaner's late.'

‘Girls! Don't fight!' Mum hated us squabbling. It seemed to upset her in a disproportionate manner for something that came very naturally to me and Cleo.

Again, family disclaimer: Mum's own mum and younger sister Kirsty died in a road accident when she was a teenager. It was something we never talked about. When I was about six, after a particularly petty spat over a Toblerone that ended with me telling Cleo I wished I didn't have a sister, her saying I wasn't her sister, I was a fat pig that had been rehomed by the farm for being too disgusting, and Mum fleeing the room in tears. Dad sat us both down and told us, in an urgent, serious voice that we'd never heard before, that the reason Mummy hated to see us fight was because her own sister was dead, and she would do anything to have Kirsty back.

That shocked us into silence, I can tell you. We wanted to apologise immediately, and ask a million questions but Dad made us promise not to. It would upset Mummy too much, he said. The best thing we could do was never to mention her again. So we didn't, to the point where Cleo and I sometimes forgot Mum had ever had a sister. As a self-centred teen, I did sometimes wonder what it would be like if Auntie Kirsty was still around (to provide us with cousins, and/or holiday spending money) but I didn't want to discuss it with Cleo, in case Mum somehow overheard and was sad. Better to say nothing.

There was just one photograph of Kirsty, which I'd found tucked into a battered student cookbook of Mum's. At first glance, I assumed it was a photo of me and Cleo: two little girls a year or two apart, one dark-haired, one blonde, both in sunglasses, sitting on a tree stump – we had so many photos like that at home. But on the back someone had written: Melanie and Kirsty, Keswick 98. I'd wondered if it had hurt Mum to see her own daughters make such a similar matching pair, one dark, one blonde. I showed Cleo, then hid the photograph in my diary, a secret.

‘Don't be like that.' Mum patted my arm, always peacemaking. ‘Cleo was just suggesting that she and I might come round and help you. Settle you in.'

‘Was I?' Cleo rolled her eyes. ‘I don't think I was …'

‘Well, that is very kind of you both,' I said. ‘But not necessary. I won't be staying here long, it's just a stopgap.'

This was cutting off my nose to spite my face, big time, but there was something about the way Cleo and Mum seemed to confuse a degreased oven with higher moral authority that rubbed me up the wrong way. They both had a habit of making me feel about twelve, although to be fair, I think only Cleo enjoyed doing it.

‘Anyway,' I said, changing the subject to something Cleo loved talking about even more than cleaning, ‘what's the latest with Orson's football team?'

‘I wondered when someone was going to ask,' said Cleo, and launched into a detailed account of Orson's county U5 trials while I ate three chocolate digestives in a row, and wondered if either of them would ever ask me how things were going for me at work.

They would, I thought, as the conversation moved on to Wes's eczema, when the Secret Project finally came good. If Mitch Maitland's message was anything to go by, before long Cleo wouldn't be the only entrepreneurial success story in the family.