The previous March
 
Charlie Fitzroy was interrupted by a phone call as he pulled back from the front door of Blackriver Cottage. Trance music blared from the back of his jeans over the sound of running water: a stream, nicknamed the Blackriver after a historic oil spill, resided behind the house, lending the cottage its name – or so he’d read online.
“Hello?” he said, his accent betraying his Eton education.
Yorkshire shone in bright shades of green around Charlie, who loitered on the cottage’s gravel driveway, his shirt sleeves pushed to the elbow against the heat of the afternoon. His black hair was brushed neatly to one side – he had an important visit to make today.
“He wants me to work today?” Charlie said with a grimace, his back to the cottage.
“I told him you were meeting your birth brother this week, but you know our Andy,” Lucy said over the phone, “if he hears news he doesn’t like, he preten