PAINT OF PASSION 17

SHE MUST HAVE been very tired, because she didn’t wake up until midday. The weak winter sun was streaming through the window, but it was freezing and her breath made smoky patterns in the air. And Daniel still wasn’t beside her.

Why hadn’t he sorted out the thermostat so that the heating came on? They weren't that skint.

Clare pulled on her jeans again without getting out from beneath the duvet and it was as she was doing this that she noticed that the room didn’t look quite the same as usual. For a start, it was tidy. There was not a solitary sock to be seen on Daniel’s side of the room, which usually looked like an explosion in a Chinese laundry. Something else was odd too ... The walls, usually graced with three paintings Daniel had done when they first arrived in Cornwall, were bare.

‘My God, we've been burgled,’ was Clare’s first thought as she leapt out of bed and ran through into the lounge. But nothing had changed there. And Daniel’s painting rucksack was still lying on the