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She was sure he would regret it because it rained the whole time, and the drips kept dripping, but as dawn broke and the alarm sounded, he told her he wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.

They had come up with some inventive ways to be together that didn’t involve either of them lying on their injured backs, and it had been quite the eye-opener. She had a feeling that was true for James as much as for her.

“I’ll have to go back and ask Mrs. McKenzie for two more tiles,” she said, her voice a little husky. She leaned carefully back against the headboard, hugging her knees as she watched him dress.

Thinking of Mrs. McKenzie reminded her. “I don’t suppose you’d be told about any thefts in Holland Park, would you?” She watched him tie his tie.

He stopped, lifting his eyes to hers. “Petty theft, no. Why?”

“The lady who gave me the tiles suspects her neighbor’s son of breaking into a shed and stealing some things.” She would raise it with Constable Evans when she came across him on her rounds later.

“She saw them?” James asked as he shrugged on his jacket.

“Apparently. Carrying a large garden refuse bag full of items.” She slipped out of bed and shivered when her feet touched the cold floor.

James had to go home and change, so he refused to let her get up and make him coffee, but he did want her to come to the door to lock it behind him.

He kissed her thoroughly against the door before he left, though, and she leaned back against it as she listened to him running lightly down the stairs, running her fingers against her lips.

Then she couldn’t help a big yawn, and she squinted as the sun broke free of the clouds and a beam of light shone right in her eyes from between her curtains.

She was up, and awake, might as well start her day.

She put the coffee on to boil, went to run a quick bath, and made up two loaves worth of sourdough to rise.

She’d take them down to Mr. Rodney before she left, as she’d been showing him how to fold them after letting them rise, and how to bake them in his oven.

She got the sense he enjoyed it.

By the time she reached headquarters, she was feeling better than she had in days.

She wasn’t as stiff, she’d had a leisurely start to her day, and hopefully she’d be able to fix the roof later, if Mrs. McKenzie was happy to give her two new tiles.

As she began her rounds, feeling way less cautious and stressed than she’d been last week, she thought back to the man who’d attacked her yesterday.

It was the first time she’d seen his face, and he really looked familiar to her.

He was tall and thin, and very young. Perhaps he’d fill out as he got older, but he looked about eighteen or so, and when she’d asked him who he was, he’d looked terrified.

Maybe he thought she could identify him, which was possible, given the niggling feeling she had that she’d seen him before.

But James had told her that Sutcliffe had called off his dogs and had said he would fix the house, although she would bet he would not stir himself to do that very quickly, which is why she still planned on getting the tiles from Mrs. McKenzie on her way home.

She passed one of the missing posters asking for information about Jerry that Teddy Roe had put up, and saw the lady from opposite Mrs. McKenzie’s house staring at it.

She was clearly about to go shopping, her wheeled shopping bag was beside her, and she reached out her hand as if to tear the poster down.

“Have you any information about the missing man?” Gabriella asked.

Mrs. . . . Jameson, she remembered at last, jerked her hand back with a gasp and then turned malevolent eyes her way.

“No.” She turned on her heel and marched down the high street toward the grocer’s.

Gabriella stared at the poster herself for a moment, and felt her frustration rise at the lack of information about what had happened to Jerry.

When her route eventually took her past Mrs. McKenzie’s house, she hesitated at the gate, and then went in, taking the path to the front door.

Mrs. McKenzie didn’t answer at her knock and she took out her notepad and wrote a quick note explaining two tiles had been broken and if Mrs. McKenzie was happy to give her two more, she could either fetch them another day or Mrs. McKenzie could leave them just inside the gate and Gabriella would pick them up on her way home.