"That was good." As people started milling about, heading either for the pop-up refreshments, or back to the beer and band tent, Erin leaned in. "Built up to the...er...climax well." Somehow the two of them had found themselves gradually standing closer, close enough for their arms to rest lightly together. But now Erin moved away sharply. "So, this lass you were with earlier. What do they call her?"

"Oh...er...Lexi. Why?"

"Clixter's a small town, for its size." Erin spread her arms, facing Leah directly. "If you know what I mean. Maybe twenty-two thousand people, tops, including the outlying bits. Anyone in this place has a good chance of knowing of or being related to someone else. If they're local. Even more so if they haven't moved away." She grinned. "I'm thirty-one and you're, what, twenty-four, twenty-five? Presumably your workmate would've introduced you to someone around the same age?" Erin watched Leah nod carefully. "So if she's a local girl, there's a chance we would've at least bumped into each other at some point, or maybe gone to the same school about the same time. I might even know her."

Always having lived in cities hitherto, Leah hadn't got her head fully around small-town dynamics yet. She found Erin's claim slightly outrageous. "Lexi definitely went away to uni, but came back. She's in her mid-twenties, I think." She shuffled her feet, partly to keep them warm and partly to stop the heels on her boots sinking into the soft grass. (If she'd known she'd be spending the evening standing in a field, rather than on a date, she'd have dressed appropriately like Erin.) She was pleased she'd guessed Erin's age, though – even if it made the pigtails even more incongruous. Her elbow brushed Erin's arm again, not entirely accidentally. "Thanks, though. I'm actually twenty-seven in July."

"A well-preserved twenty-six it is, then." Erin nudged Leah's arm back, lightly but deliberately. "Let's get a cuppa to warm up. If I can wangle an early finish for myself, I'll take you for that drink you were expecting." She led them around the back of the crowd away from the pop-up refreshment vans. "Who's your colleague?"

Leah could tell Erin was fishing for more information, maybe subtly on the girl who'd stood her up. "Um, her surname's Bingham, but I don't know if it's the same as Lexi's." Leah pointed at the Land Rover they seemed to be headed towards, then at the hot dog and burger vans. "Aren't the refreshment stalls over there?"

"Yeah." Erin tugged at her hi-vis. "But the only reason I'm here in this get-up is because my mum's on the Town Council and bullied me into helping. I've been here since dinnertime helping set up, and now I'm cold and plainly surplus to requirements, so I reckon she owes me a tea, at least. And you're coming along, because you're with me now." Erin leant in slightly. "One of the other councillors has brought flasks of tea for themselves, operating out the back of that Land Rover. I'm buggered if I'm paying for a plastic cup of mediocre crap from a burger van."

At the Land Rover, Leah was handed a strong, milky tea in a genuine – if chipped – large mug by a cheerful old man in a crumpled Barbour jacket, who turned out to be Erin's uncle. "New friend of Erin's, eh? Good good." Erin was off to one side talking to her mother.

Leah made polite conversation with him (wondering whether she'd just imagined the slightly arch emphasis on the word friend), and learnt that he was the current town mayor. He seemed pleased with how things were going, and Leah discovered that the whole undertaking was an experiment: the Town Council had decided that it would be nice to have a community event and controlled fireworks display, in the early evening of New Year's Eve. It was hoped it would bring people together after a few years of isolation, and mean that they didn't feel they had to have their own fireworks at home (which risked damage, injury and distress to pets and livestock – it was a rural area); but it would still finish early enough for people to go to the pub or have a house party if they wished.

Leah thought it was a very sensible idea, and was surprised it hadn't been tried before. When she made approving comments and said she was a newcomer, the old fellow asked the inevitable questions about how and why she'd ended up here, and she explained she'd taken a post as a solicitor with a local firm called Laughton & Northcote.

The chap laughed heartily. "Used to be a partner there, retired four years ago." He stuck out his hand. "Alec Northcote. Small world, eh?"

"Gosh, indeed. Leah Brewer." She shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mr Northcote." She felt slightly uncomfortable: the partners in her previous, large, city firm had been lofty, otherworldly beings, who rarely interacted with junior staff. Here, she not only answered directly to another Mr Northcote at work, but was now standing behind a battered Land Rover in a muddy field with a retired original of the breed. "I've joined on the property side of things, primarily." She was beginning to realise that perhaps Erin was right, and this town was indeed its own small world. Alec Northcote was just as breezily friendly as his niece, though, and they chatted casually about the local office until Erin joined them.

"Bonus. Mum says I'm not needed any more." She folded up her hi-vis jacket. "Cheers for the tea, Uncle Alec." She tucked the jacket and her mug into the back of the Land Rover and rested her hand on Leah's arm for a second. "Shall we get that drink?"

Leah handed her mug back. "Thank you, Mr Northcote. See you again, perhaps, if you ever pop by the old office."

Alec Northcote smiled. "Enjoy your evening, Miss Brewer. We'll meet again, no doubt."

Erin looked between them quickly, and did a rapid calculation – she clocked that Leah must work for her uncle's firm, but also knew that her uncle made a point of never going near the place now he'd retired. She gave her uncle a firm look. "Now then, Uncle Alec, Leah here had been fixed up to come along with someone else tonight, but they've gone and abandoned her. Luckily she came to talk to me, not sure why. Anyway...I'm going to take her to the pub to prove we're not all so rude. It is New Year's Eve, after all."

"Good idea," said Alec Northcote, mildly. "See you tomorrow?"

Leah felt unexpectedly included by his question, but couldn't imagine why. Erin slipped an arm through hers and started pulling her away. "Yep, daren't miss it. Hope you're not too late finishing up."