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it?”
    “Daniel Smith. Let’s see. It’s not obvious, is it? There must be a thousand other Daniel Smiths out there. Daniel. Something biblical. Isn’t it the name of one of the books in the bible? They could have called you Leviticus, I suppose... And Smith. Someone who makes things. Blacksmith. Locksmith. Silversmith. It means you have traditionalist parents who chose you a good biblical name, and that somewhere in the past you have an ancestor who did things with his hands. Am I right?”
    “Maybe. But you missed out what it hides. It’s not really Smith – it’s Schmidt. Or at least, my Gran changed her surname to the English equivalent when she came to England. She came here in the 1960s with her two brothers. They managed to cross the Berlin Wall from the communist part of the city. The three of them made it but their sister didn’t. She came much later. They didn’t know she was still alive, until she turned up on the doorstep one day. She’s ... dead now.”
    “Your gran. Is she the one who lives with you now?”
    Danny nodded. “She’s a Smith officially, but we still call her ‘Oma Schmidt’ at home. That’s German for Grandma Smith.”
    Cassie giggled. “Sounds like an apple! Granny Smith. That’s biblical, too: the apple in the Garden of Eden. Temptation. Original sin and all that.”
    He was getting used to the way Cassie’s mind raced off in so many different directions. Sort of.
    Rather than follow the course of the stream back down the hill, they cut through to the track that led down from Moreton Farm.
    “You can hold my hand if you like.”
    He did. Her hand was tiny in his. It made him think of Beauty and the Beast.
    “You know what I think?”
    She was going to tell him, he was sure. He waited, and she continued.
    “I think that one day you might actually trust someone enough that you’ll open up and tell them all the things you’re always so careful to keep locked up inside.”
    “I don’t believe you, Cassandra. I don’t believe anything you tell me about the future.”
    She smacked his arm with her free hand.
    They came to the gate at the top end of the Hope Springs grounds. Danny opened it and held it for Cassie. Once in the grounds, he didn’t take her hand again.

8 Little Rick
    Danny found Oma Schmidt in the long glasshouse behind the Hall. Bustling about, gathering disused pots and sorting them into different sizes. Always cleaning, always tidying – that was Oma Schmidt’s way.
    Danny paused in the doorway. There was something in the set of her shoulders, and the jerky way she moved... She seemed upset.
    He went in, picking up a terracotta pot. He placed it on the bench where she was working and she clicked her tongue disapprovingly. She snatched it up and reached over to put it in a stack of pots of the same size and then she paused and looked across her shoulder at him.
    Instantly she smiled, the tense expression slipping away.
    “Ah, Danny, my boy! Good, good. You come to help Oma Schmidt? Everyone, they are on the edge about the open day, you know. They say there has been no village fete for the last four years and the people of the village will be putting up a marquee on the grass and having it here with us.”
    Danny knew all this – it had been arranged months before. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
    “Ach, yes, but it all seems so disorganised .”
    “It’ll be okay.”
    “You think?” Oma started to brush off the bench. “He came round again,” she went on. “Richard. Little Rick. Can he not see where he is not wanted?”
    Danny was puzzled by that. “But...”
    Oma looked at him, briefly. “I do not like him. He make me shiver. Your mother does not like him either. But still he comes.”
    Everybody liked Little Rick. He was popular at Severnside Community School, just as he was popular at Hope Springs. “Val seems to like him well enough,” he said. “She needs friends. She needs to start having a life again.”
    Oma tensed. She was brushing