Then Jamie emerged from the house, and every other thought went clean out of his head. Her hair was caught up in a kind of messy bun. It left her neck and shoulders exposed in a way that made him want to take a bite. She was wearing those really tight black pants that women wore for gym sometimes. What were they called? They made her legs look like they went all the way up to her ears.

With her feet bare and an oversized T-shirt slipping off one shoulder, she was a distraction, to put it mildly. With a massive exercise of will, Tom managed to wrench his mind back to the normal courtesies of life.

“Thanks so much for letting us come over,” he said. “If you only knew how Ben has been begging.”

Tom loosened his grip on Ben’s hand. The kid immediately tore free and rushed up to Jamie to fling his arms around her legs. Tom winced, expecting her to sweep him into a hug.

But she just smiled at Ben and bent down to pat him on the shoul­ der.“Welcome, gentlemen,” she said, including them both. “Come inside and let’s round up some cats.”

“Psss!” Ben said, jumping up and down. “Psss! Pssss!”

“The pussycats are out in the garden. If you sit quietly on the grass, they’ll come to you, and maybe even sit on your lap.”

As Jamie led them through the house towards the patio, Tom felt himself relax. He said hello to Faith in passing, and was pleased to see that she also gave Ben no more than a restrained greeting. Perhaps this was going to work out better than he’d hoped.

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As they walked into the bright November sunshine, Jamie saw Tom produce a cap for Ben from the rucksack on his shoulder and fit it over his head. Then he rooted around in the rucksack and came up with a cup of juice. The cup had a drinking spout fitted to the top. Jamie was glad she hadn’t brought out the almost identical sippy cup she’d purchased yesterday.

Tom noticed Jamie looking at the sippy cup and said, “I know it looks like juice, but it’s really just baby rooibos tea. It won’t harm his teeth at all.”

Jamie laughed. “That’s fine. I’m not the juice police.”

“Sorry. I spend so much time explaining myself to the uber-mommies in our toddler group that I sometimes forget not everyone is judging me.”

“That sounds tough.”

Jamie longed to bombard him with sympathy and enquiries about the uber-mommies, but managed to restrain herself. She led them onto the lawn. There wasn’t a cat in sight, but she knew how to rectify that.

“Let’s all sit down on the grass,” she said. “Yes, like that. Now keep your hands very still and sit quietly, Ben. Just like that. Good!” Jamie didn’t know much about twenty-month-old babies, but Ben seemed to understand every word she said.

When they were all settled on the grass, Jamie began to call the cats. “Holmes! Watson! Kitty, kitty, kitty. Come here, boys!”

“I thought cats never come when they’re called,” Tom said. “They come when they feel like it. And they nearly always feel like it when we’re in the garden. See … here they come now.” There was a rustling in the bushes and two cats emerged from the undergrowth. They trotted across the lawn – the handsome grey and the fluffy ginger that Tom remembered from previous visits. Ben squeaked and lunged towards them, but subsided when Jamie reminded him to sit still.

“Good boys,” Jamie said, rubbing ears and scratching chins. “Yes, you’re good boys, aren’t you?”

Tom held his breath as the cats broke away from Jamie to circle him and Ben. Their postures were wary, but they didn’t seem inclined to bolt. He held out the back of his hand to the grey one, just as he would to a strange dog. The cat gave his hand a cursory sniff and allowed him to stroke its head.

Then Jamie took Ben’s hand and showed him how to extend it in an unthreatening way to pet the cat. The look of delight on Ben’s face was reward enough for Tom. His eyes were glowing.

“They feel a bit like Silver, don’t they, Benny?” Tom said. “But they’re softer.”

“Thoft!” Ben agreed, nodding. “Thoft.”

Soon both cats came to make friends with the little boy. The ginger sprawled out on the grass next to him. Tom wondered, as he had many times before, where the animal-loving streak in Ben came from. Was it nature or nurture? Did his birth-mother come from a long line of animal lovers? Or his biological father perhaps?

He would probably never know. Ben’s birth-mother had been a refugee from the north. The tears she shed would have been for her family and friends left behind.

And Ben’s blood father – a labourer on the mines, as far as Tom’s private detective had been able to find out – was no doubt a hard, practical man. But Ben had been nuts about animals from birth. As soon as his eyes could focus, he had been fascinated by Silver. The moment he could reach out, he had reached for the sweet-natured Golden Retriever.

Now he was in his element, running his fingers through the cats’ fur, pulling gently at their ears, and tickling their tummies. The usually boisterous toddler was as careful as an altar-boy when it came to animals.

Jamie got to her feet, and Tom followed her example.

“Well, he looks happy enough,” she said. “How about something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Or would you prefer a cold drink?”

“Coffee would be great, thanks. But won’t the cats follow you if you go into the house?”

“Normally, yes, but they’ve really taken to Ben. They’ll sit there as long as he does.”