‘William says that, in her day, Phoebe Taylor was a legend. She was here the other night with Odile, actually. They obviously like the place, despite Sally being rude to them.’

‘Sally being rude?’

‘You’d better believe it. She was a monster that night. IMHO, it’s one of the reasons she hopped off.’

Theresa didn’t understand about Sally, though. Upsetting diners wasn’t her usual way. When serving at table she was always so bright and charming. Theresa wondered whether the stress of the Picasso episode hadn’t slightly unhinged her. Doing a disappearing act was hardly in the spirit of things. Less the Blitz spirit than out and out surrender. Perhaps the situation and worry had all got too much for her. Otherwise why be a rat and desert the sinking ship?

Hopefully tonight’s booking was good news for the remaining team, at last. Benjamin must know what he was talking about and it was certainly a grain of good fortune in a bucket of trouble.

But today it wouldn’t be an easy ride. She still had other things to worry about, like the potential return of Chloe with Roger Muffett. It would be interesting to see the husband of the ex-wife who she had already encountered.

First she must get the luncheon service over. Then she could go up and join her daughter at the Hotel Astra and concentrate on the return of her granddaughter.

Theresa rolled up her sleeves.

‘Oh . . .’ Benjamin spun round and pulled an envelope from his pocket. ‘Someone left this for you. Another of your many fans, I presume. These days simply the whole world is sending you gifts.’

The envelope was covered in red hearts surrounding Theresa’s name.

She ripped it open.

Inside was another photo taken from her photo album. In it she was standing, smiling, next to her ex-husband, who had his arm casually around her shoulder.

But someone had scribbled over Peter Simmonds’s body with a black felt-tip pen and had scored away his face with a sharp knife. And on Theresa’s chest they had drawn another bright red heart, this time with a sword through it.

Sally accomplished the tricky boat-stunt scene very fast. With Jean-Philippe at her side things were a lot easier. They communicated in French, making things clearer between them and at the same time foxing the sound crew, who were picking up everything they said from the mic fastened to the dashboard.

There were no lines to remember, but the mic was there to capture an excited squeal which Sally had to make as the boat roared off. She then had to continue making noises while the boat appeared to go out of control.

The scene later involved Sally falling out of the boat, and being hauled back in by Eggy’s character, now being played by Jean-Philippe, before they thundered away and disappeared into the sunset.