HE SAID that just as he came out into the open drive, just as the first faint chill of emptiness touched him, when no children came running from the garden, even before he saw her car was gone. It wasn’t in the circle and her space in the garage was empty.
He drove on around, parked, got out and stood listening to the suddenly desolate silence around him. He went into the house and listened again. It was so still he could hear the hum of the ice box out in the kitchen. Not even the cat came to purr and rub affectionately against his ankles. He went back outside and looked around. Then he saw the dog, sitting at Miss Fairlie’s end of the little white bridge across the marsh at the head of the Cove. That meant the kids were over at Eden. Miss Fairlie didn’t like dogs. There was nobody else
