Dad was dozing in his favourite garden chair when I opened the back door of our cottage and stepped outside.

Having just turned seventy-four, he was adamant that he’d earned his rest, and that he wasn’t going to let anyone make him feel guilty for spending a good portion of his day doing, as he put it, ‘sod all’.

I don’t know who he was trying to convince. We’d been telling him to take it easier ever since he’d finally retired from his job at the garage just four years ago, so he was preaching to the converted.

‘I wasn’t asleep,’ were his first words to me as he jolted upright so fast, he nearly knocked the half-full glass of beer off the table next to him.

Before I could reply, his face lit up at the sight of his beloved aunt, and he cried, ‘Polly! How smashing to see you. Come and sit down next to me.’

‘Don’t mind if I do, Jimmy,’ she said warmly. ‘Always happy to spend time with my favourite nephew.’

‘Your only nephew,’ he pointed out. ‘Not much of a compliment really.’

‘Go on with you!’ She gave him a playful nudge which, naturally, he couldn’t feel but made him chuckle anyway. I gave them both a fond look and said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Tea or coffee, Dad?’

‘Now what do you think?’ he said, pushing away his beer as if it was no longer any use to him. ‘Deakins are tea drinkers, as well you know. Did we open a coffee shop in the village? Did we heck. A teashop’s what we run and tea’s what we drink.’

‘I quite like a coffee,’ I admitted, trying not to grin.

As expected, he gave an exasperated ‘Pah!’ and waved me away.

‘Forgets she’s a Deakin sometimes,’ he confided in Aunt Polly. ‘Been a Bannerman too long.’

‘I was just saying to her, Jimmy, that she’s been divorced for years. Ought to change her name back if you ask me.’

‘I can still hear you, you know!’ I called from the kitchen, where I was rooting in the cupboard for two mugs.

‘Nothing we haven’t said to your face,’ called back Aunt Polly.

I shook my head, but the smile had faded.

As I vaguely heard them chatting to each other in the garden, my mind strayed to the issue of my name, and whether I should change it back to Deakin.

After all, Dad and Aunt Polly were right.

I’d been divorced for years – ever since my husband, Luke, had decided he was done playing happy families and wanted his freedom.

‘I just need to clear my head,’ he’d told me. ‘I need to live alone for a while. Just till I figure things out. I need some space.’

Needing some space had turned into a year, and before I knew it, the divorce papers had landed on my doormat, and I was suddenly the ex-Mrs Bannerman. I could have refused to sign them, just to be awkward, but what would have been the point?

‘Have you gone to India for that tea?’ Dad called and I laughed.

‘Coming right up!’

I still felt a pang of guilt as I carried the two mugs of tea into the garden. I knew Aunt Polly couldn’t drink but it didn’t stop me from feeling I should have offered her one, as stupid as that sounds.

‘I was just telling your dad about the meeting,’ she said, as I settled myself in the chair next to hers.

I pushed a mug towards Dad and nodded. ‘It sounds like fun, doesn’t it?’

He glanced at his aunt. ‘Well, the forties weren’t all fun, I’m sure. I hope young Callie remembers that and treats the occasion with some respect.’

Aunt Polly giggled. ‘Respect? Give over, Jimmy! We want to give people a good time, not have them crying into their beer. I might have a word with young Callie. Give her some advice, like. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.’

‘Are – are you sure, Polly?’ he asked.

There was real concern in his eyes, and I knew why.

Because Aunt Polly hadn’t just died in the 1940s.

She’d been murdered.