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Caroline didn’t want to go straight home. She needed Mark and the boys beside her, but more than anything she needed the time to process things in her own mind.
She hadn’t needed her sat nav, nor did she need to try and remember the route she’d taken last time she came here. Now, temporarily, there was a very obvious landmark: the plume of smoke that still rose into the sky as the last remnants of the fire were brought under control just outside Tinwell.
‘You’re too late,’ she said to Leah MacGregor as she walked from her car to the cordon around the farm. ‘You missed the good bit.’
‘I think we all heard the good bit. I was on the scene within fifteen minutes. I’ve just come back to get an update. Funny, I don’t remember seeing you around earlier.’
‘I was otherwise engaged.’
‘With
