CHAPTER ONE

      SO, HERE SHE was at last. Saffi stretched her limbs and walked across the grass to the clifftop railing, where she stood and looked out over the bay. After several hours on the coach, it was good to be out in the fresh air once more.

      From here she could see the quay, where fishermen stacked their lobster pots and tended their nets, and for a while she watched the brightly coloured pleasure boats and fishing craft as they tossed gently on the water. Seagulls flew overhead, calling to one another as they soared and dived in search of tasty tidbits.

      In the distance, whitewashed cottages nestled amongst the tree-clad hills, where crooked paths twisted and turned on their way down to the harbour. This little corner of Devon looked idyllic. It was so peaceful, so perfect.

      If only she could absorb some of that tranquillity. After all, wasn’t that why she was here, the reason she had decided to leave everything behind, everything that had represented safety and security in her life— even though in the end that security had turned out to be something of a sham?

      A small shiver of panic ran through her. Was she doing the right thing? How could she know what lay ahead? Had she made a big mistake in coming here?

      She pulled in a shaky breath, filling her lungs with sea air, and then let it out again slowly, trying to calm herself. She’d been living in Hampshire for the last few years, but this place ought to be familiar to her, or so she’d been told, and it was, in a way, in odd fragments of memory that drifted through her brain, lingered for a moment, and then dissolved in mist as quickly as they’d come.

      ‘Perhaps it’s what you need,’ her solicitor had said, shuffling the freshly signed papers into a neat bundle and sliding them into a tray on his desk. ‘It might do you some good to go back to the place where you spent your childhood. You could at least give it a try.’

      ‘Yes, maybe you’re right.’

      Now the warm breeze stirred, gently lifting her honey-gold hair and she turned her face towards the sun and felt its caress on her bare arms. Maybe its heat would somehow manage to thaw the chill that had settled around her heart these last few months.

      A lone seagull wandered close by, pecking desultorily in the grass, searching for anything edible among the red fescue and the delicate white sea campion. He kept an eye on her, half cautious, half hopeful.

      She smiled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any food for you,’ she said softly. ‘Come to think of it, I haven’t actually had anything myself since breakfast.’ That seemed an awfully long time ago now, but she’d been thinking so hard about what lay ahead that everything else, even food, had gone from her mind. Not that forgetfulness was unusual for her these days.

      ‘Thanks for reminding me,’ she told the bird. ‘I should go and find some lunch. Perhaps if you stop by here another day I might have something for you.’

      She felt brighter in herself all at once. Coming here had been a big decision for her to make, but it was done. She was here now, and maybe she could look on this as a new beginning.

      She moved away from the railing, and glanced around. Her solicitor had made arrangements for her to be met at the Seafarer Inn, which was just across the road from here. It was an attractive-looking building, with lots of polished mahogany timbers decorating the ground-floor frontage and white-painted rendering higher up. There were window-boxes filled with crimson geraniums and trailing surfinias in shades of pink and cream, and in front, on the pavement, there were chalkboards advertising some of the meals that were on offer.

      There was still more than half an hour left before her transport should arrive, plenty of time for her to get some lunch and try to gather her thoughts.

      She chose a table by a window, and went over to the bar to place her order. ‘I’m expecting a Mr Flynn to meet me here in a while,’ she told the landlord, a cheerful, friendly man, who was busy polishing glasses with a clean towel. ‘Would you mind sending him over to me if he asks?’

      ‘I’ll see to it, love. Enjoy your meal.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      The solicitor had told her Mr Flynn had been acting as caretaker for the property these last few months. ‘He’ll give you the keys and show you around. I think he’s probably a semi-retired gentleman who’s glad to help out. He seems very nice, anyway. When I wrote and told him you don’t drive at the moment he offered to come and pick you up.’

      So now all she had to do was wait. There was a fluttery feeling in her stomach, but she went back to her table and sat down. she felt conspicuous at first, being here in a bar full of strangers, but now that she was tucked away in the corner she felt much more comfortable, knowing that she was partially shielded by a mahogany lattice.

      For her meal, she’d chosen a jacket potato with cheese and a side salad, and she had only just started to eat when a shadow fell across her table. She quickly