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Despite the sun bursting through the windows of Tanglewood Cottage, I shivered. Aunt Ada’s wellies and old shoes waited on the worn mat in the kitchen where she had pulled them off, and her favourite blue and green mug remained upside down on the draining board. I still expected her to breeze into the cottage, wearing her mismatched clothes and switch the kettle on. Though her body was never recovered from the Seine in Paris, the community wanted me to organise a memorial service so everyone could say goodbye, but I couldn’t face it. It seemed so final.

Seated at the oak table, I traced my finger around the empty glass cake stand and promised to leaf through her bulging recipe folders and bake some of her favourite cakes. A large photo canvas on the wall caught my eye. We were both standing in front of the towering lupins at the bottom of her garden, grinning into the lens. She had teased me that I was a quarter of a century.

On that day Aunt Ada handed me the keys to her cottage and the deeds. She said, ‘It makes me happy to gift my beloved cottage to you, Maisie, and take the pressure off your working life. I can’t wait to travel around France in my camper van and see Paris in springtime.’ There was a twinkle in her eye when I asked if she was travelling alone. Had she been with someone special when the boat sank?

Aunt Ada was keen for me to move into the cottage at weekends and holidays while I finished my teacher training. But my ex, Matt, and his housemates were given notice on their digs in Leeds, and he mentioned sharing a flat with stunning Connie. I rented a trendy penthouse with him in Leeds Docks, believing I had played a clever hand. After a year, I packed my bags, leaving behind a tiny piece of my heart in the draughty open plan apartment. Having licked my wounds at my parents’ house for a couple of months, I finished my teacher training course and found a job near to my aunt’s place.

The ancient cottage wrapped itself around me now. Smoothing my hand over a potbellied wall of my new home, I hummed my aunt’s favourite song - Paris in springtime . Unable to think of how she might have died in Paris, I swallowed the choking sensation that usually resulted in tears, finished the last drop of tea and looked at my phone. A notification indicated I had been accepted into the Heatherbridge Facebook page.

Scrolling through the page, I spotted a post with a candle GIF. A sucker for punishment, I could not resist reading the tribute to my aunt:

It is with deep sadness we must inform you that Ada Bloom has been presumed dead. Her life was taken too soon in a boat accident in Paris. She was the heart and soul of our community and will be missed. No one will ever win our hearts again like the mighty Ada Bloom!

My throat contracted with another sob, but it comforted me to know she had made an impression on Heatherbridge. Why was she the mighty Ada Bloom ? Then I realised she would have been a force to be reckoned with when campaigning for the local library. ‘I miss you Aunt Ada,’ I said out loud and then read more comments from the community on the Facebook page.

Camellia: I am not convinced Ada passed away on that boat in Paris. She’s only presumed dead because her body wasn’t found. I have this funny feeling. And her niece moved in a bit too sharpish for my liking.

Hand over my mouth, I gasped. Did she think I had done something dodgy to get hold of the cottage? But then her observation also tapped into a little niggle in the back of my mind. When my gran died, I had sensed something sad had happened. My aunt’s death was a bolt out of the blue and it did not seem real.