Brenda had always had a soft spot for Molly. There was something about her sweet, country-girl face, rosy cheeks, soft blue eyes and lovely smile that brightened any day. She was the reason Heywoods grocery shop was always busy; she was warm, funny and a great listener, too. Jack Heywood believed the shop’s success was because of him but, in truth, if Molly ever left, he’d lose most of his customers overnight.

‘She wouldn’t do that, Brenda,’ Molly said with a shake of her head. ‘She spent days making Petal’s costume, and even if she hadn’t done she would’ve come just to support me, as I organized the party.’

Brenda remembered how everyone had talked when Cassandra March arrived in Sawbridge village two years earlier. They had looked at the voluptuous redhead with deep suspicion. She wore no wedding ring and had a half-caste four-year-old girl in tow. That the child was called Petal only raised more eyebrows. After all, what sort of person would give their child such a name?

‘She’ll be a whore,’ Jack Heywood announced that night in the Pied Horse and, even though Brenda firmly believed that you should never label anyone before getting to know them, she had to admit that the woman’s flaming red hair, pencil skirt, tight sweater, high heels and excessive make-up conformed to the image of a fallen woman.

No one had imagined Cassandra March would want to stay in the village; it was assumed she’d come to see someone here and that, once that was done, she’d leave. But, to everyone’s amazement, she began looking for a place to rent.

It was no real surprise that Molly befriended her – even as a young girl, she’d collected up the kids that everyone else shunned. But, to be fair to Molly, Brenda also found there was a lot to like about this mysterious young woman who didn’t appear to give a fig for what people thought of her. And Petal was a bewitching little girl, with her big eyes, toffee-coloured skin and shiny, curly hair. She was a poppet. Even some of her mother’s most voluble critics passed on outgrown clothes and toys from their own children to Petal.

Somehow, against all the odds, Cassie had managed to persuade cantankerous Enoch Flowers to let her live in an old farm cottage he owned in the woods. A rumour went around that she’d offered him her body for it, and perhaps she had. But Brenda thought it was more likely the old man let her have it as he found the idea of a city girl living in isolation, cooking on an open fire and using an outdoor privy very amusing, just as most people in the village did.

Yet they were all wrong about how she would cope with country life. She made the little cottage a home and she stayed. The high heels and tight skirts were brought out only for trips into Bristol, but Cassie still managed to look like a pin-up girl in a cotton frock, with a scarf tied around her head and wellington boots.

‘I’m getting really worried now,’ Molly admitted to Brenda. ‘I saw Cassie yesterday when she gave me some bottles of orange squash as her contribution to the party. She promised me she was coming today – she said Petal had had her costume on and off about a hundred times. Cassie had even got a new dress to wear. So why aren’t they here? What if one of them is ill or has had an accident?’

‘Oh, no. It won’t be that.’ Brenda patted Molly’s cheeks affectionately. ‘Most likely she was put off coming because they’d have to tramp through mud to the village. Or maybe they went to someone’s house this morning to watch the ceremony on television and decided to stay on there. Stop worrying. There’s enough to do here to keep us all on our toes!’

She was right about that: two six-year-old boys were pushing cakes into each other’s faces, and Brenda rushed off to separate them.

Molly handed round some sausage rolls, astounded at how quickly the huge tray was emptied, but her mind was on her friend. Cassie wasn’t normally too keen on joining in village activities because, even after two years, she was still treated with suspicion by many people. But she would’ve braved it today for Petal, as the little girl was excited about dressing up as Britannia. Cassie had scoured the shops in Bristol until she found a suitable helmet and had sewn the dress by hand.

Mud would never have put them off; Cassie would just have packed the costume into a bag and changed Petal when they got to the village. As for watching television at someone’s house – who was there? The few people who had televisions – and Molly’s own parents were part of that select group – wouldn’t invite someone like Cassie to watch it with them.

As it was, Molly had only watched the actual crowning in Westminster Abbey, because there was too much to do for the party for her to see anything more.

She caught hold of Brenda’s arm. ‘Look, I must go up to Cassie’s, to satisfy myself that Petal and her are okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll go on my bike, so it won’t take long.’

Brenda pursed her lips. ‘If you feel that strongly, I suppose you must. But you’ll get drenched,’ she said, looking anxiously at Molly’s new blue gingham dress with its full skirt and her white, strappy sandals.

‘I’ve got my raincoat and my wellingtons in the cloakroom,’ Molly assured her. ‘I’ll be back long before we start the party games, and I’ll enjoy them then without worrying.’

Taking one last look around the crowded village hall and satisfying herself that there were enough mothers helping, Molly put a few sandwiches, sausage rolls and cakes in a cardboard cake box, found a spare party hat, flag and hooter, then rushed off to fetch her raincoat and boots.

It was hard to cycle up Platt’s Hill in the driving rain, and her raincoat kept blowing open, so her dress was getting soaked, but Molly reminded herself it would be easy coming back down. She was always cycling up this hill to deliver groceries for people, but the narrow, rutted lane which led down to Stone Cottage, where Cassie lived, was almost at the top of the hill, well past the last of the village houses. From there on, it was only fields and woodland.

On reaching the little lane and seeing it was too muddy to ride down, she left her bike and, carrying the box of party food, made her way gingerly down to Cassie’s house.

In sunshine, Stone Cottage and the surrounding woodland looked idyllic; a place of utter peace and beauty. More than once Cassie had told Molly that it made her heart glad every single morning she woke here. This suggested to Molly that Cassie had lived in a very bad place before, but Cassie wasn’t one for confidences. Molly wondered if this was because her father was a tyrant, much like her own, and had thrown her out when he discovered she was pregnant. Admitting such a thing would be hard for someone as proud as Cassie.

But whether this was the case or not, Stone Cottage was still lovely even in the rain, albeit with a slightly sinister tinge, because the birdsong halted and the tree trunks took on a fairy-tale menace.

Molly came out into the clearing, Stone Cottage was to her left, built with its rear against a solid rockface. Presumably, when the cottage had been built a hundred or more years ago, it made good sense to utilize this wall of rock, and the roof began where the rock ended. Ivy and other plants had crept up and over the cottage roof, hiding it, so a stranger coming down through the wood above the cottage wouldn’t know it was there until they found themselves stepping on to the roof. Cassie had often mentioned that she’d heard badgers and other night creatures walking around on it.

It was a simple little place, one room down and one up, the staircase between the two floors little more than a ladder. Four windows to the front, two on each floor, either side of the front door, which was framed by a dilapidated rose-covered porch. On the side of the cottage was a second door, with the pump beside it and a well-worn brick path to the privy, which also leaned against the rockface. This door had clearly always been the preferred way in and out of the cottage. Cassie had been unable to open the front door because the lock had seized up with lack of use.