ARC GOT THE RAYBURN lit with very little fuss and ran the tap for a good long while before filling the big kettle. The water came into the house from a spring up in the woods and although he always turned the stopcock off and drained the pipes before he left, everything could do with flushing through.
Mal shut the front door behind him and stood and watched him from the doorway of the kitchen. Marc didn’t much like the look of him. He was swaying gently where he stood and the dog was leaning against his legs, probably keeping him upright.
It was going to take a good hour or more for the stove to get anywhere hot enough to boil the kettle, so he dug the electric one out from under the sink and filled that and put it on.
“Go on through,” he said, gesturing to the parlour behind him acros
