She stood still, head tilted, eyes darting, mind searching.

What?
           
Something was moving, down by the stone bridge. Something, or someone, was scrambling down from the bridge to the river bank. It wasn’t Diane. It was someone, or something, more nimble.
           
She used her ears to follow its progress along the river path. For some reason she didn’t want to probe with her net. Her skin tingled. The hairs on the back of her neck tickled. The net listened. The birds in the wood listened. The world held its breath.
           
A man strode into sight: a youngish man, about the same age as her, or slightly older perhaps; a lightly bearded hippy with a thick plait of dark hair hanging between his shoulder blades. He was wearing faded denim, army boots, and a small haversack. He was tall, very suntanned and ruggedly handsome.
           
Kate tutted. She sounded like someone out of one of Catherine’s books. Tall, dark and handsome, indeed. But he was gorgeous.

 
He was also very confident of his surroundings. He kept throwing his arms out and his head back, twirling around and laughing. Strange.
           
He scooped up a double handful of water from the riverpool and drank, then continued along the path.

           
Kate lost sight of him. She ran downstairs and jogged along the ridge, roughly parallel to his route, following his passage by sound.

           
He stopped. There was silence.
           
Kate listened hard. Nothing. Should she cast her net? Why did that worry her? She listened.
           
The silence was split wide open by a shriek of joy and a cackle of laughter. Diane Kell. Kate could hear her berating someone with playful sternness for his long absence and his failure to write any letters. She cackled with laughter again.
           
Joseph Kell. It must be. He’d come home. The solicitor must have tracked him down.
           
Kate walked slowly back towards the house, thinking about the tall hippy and his grandmother, the witch. A weird pair of tenants she’d won. Tenants? Whatever.
           
Now she sounded like Sam.
           
Back on the balcony she picked up a paintbrush and tapped it against her teeth thoughtfully, trying to recapture her rapture. It wouldn’t come. Bloody Kells. She took the coffee pot inside and put a pan of water on the range.
           
Don’t experiment with the net around naked flames, she told herself. Use your hands.
           
She grinned and glanced at her watch. Half eleven. What to do about lunch? Ignore it and get on with the picture, she told herself, but it was a half-hearted command. A snack then, later, while I work. The water boiled and she took her caffeine fix up to the balcony.
           
He was in the water. He was naked in the riverpool. In her riverpool! He stood knee deep in the shallows and his towel and boots lay on the rock where she laid her things every morning.
           
Kate watched, her lips parted, every sense alert, while he covered his body in a thick lather of soap and scrubbed thoroughly. She felt outrage, coloured with amusement, outlined with interest.
           
He plunged into the deep water and rinsed the soap off, the same way she always did. He surfaced, returned to sit in the shallows and rubbed up lather again. He washed his hair and rinsed it, washed and rinsed again, then stood up and shook his mane wildly about his head. Droplets flew in every direction, catching the sun, giving him a rainbow halo.
           
God, he’s gorgeous!
           
He looked up sharply, as if she’d shouted the thought out loud, and caught her in mid-lust. He smiled slowly, crookedly, staring up the hill at her, making no effort to hide his nakedness.
           
The universe slowed down and the net hummed. Kate saw the line between them vibrate. It flowed in subtle waves towards her and caressed her. It was like being undressed slowly, teasingly, by a lover.
           
He was undressing her with his eyes. With his net! His net!
           
A rushing flush of recognition distracted her, for a moment, from the fact that his penis was perking up and starting to take an interest in her.
           
She plonked her coffee on the table and stalked indoors. She felt clumsy and uncoordinated, legs stiff with self-consciousness. He was ogling her bum and laughing and she wasn’t sure who she hated more: him for doing it or herself for getting caught while spying on him.