‘Like your co-star,’ Daniel pulled his face away from the camera and laughed sarcastically. ‘Well, I’m sure it’ll work fine without any communication. You just drive out to the horizon and then you turn back.’

Sally resisted the urge to ask whether the director belonged to the Flat Earth Society. Didn’t everyone know that as you move forward so does the horizon?

Well. She’d work all that out later. Now she just wanted to get on with it. But where was Eggy?

Gasping for breath after her run up the hill, Theresa entered the Hotel Astra. She climbed up the stairs to the second floor and banged on the door of the room which she hoped would correspond with the window Neil was using to talk Shakespeare to Chloe.

Roger opened up.

He looked tired and depressed.

‘Is Chloe in here?’

Roger pulled a face of incomprehension. ‘Should she be?’

‘Where’s Neil?’

‘I don’t know.’ Roger shrugged. ‘A few minutes ago, he was locked in the bathroom, babbling to himself, then suddenly he shut up and raced out of the room like a lightning bolt.’

‘So did Chloe.’ Theresa hoped Roger knew how serious this situation was. ‘Chloe was staying down in my flat for safekeeping. They’ve obviously run off again.’

‘Oh bloody hell.’ Roger turned and grabbed a jacket. ‘We’ve got to find them. I don’t want that bloody bossy bitch of a schoolteacher on my back again.’ He paused and winced. ‘Oops. Sorry. She’s your daughter, isn’t she? Ah well. No time for manners now. Let’s go!’

Theresa followed Roger down the corridor to the stairs. Her phone buzzed. She answered, praying it would be Chloe.

‘Theresa, it’s Sally. Please could you try Phoebe Markham again. I have to get Eggy here. I’m so worried.’

Theresa was now torn. She had to get out and search for Chloe. But it would be too petty not to tell Sally that she had seen him.

‘I know where he is,’ she replied. ‘Hotel Astra.’

‘Jesus!’ cried Sally. ‘What the hell is he doing there?’

‘Look. We’ve lost Chloe again. I’ll do my best.’

Theresa hung up, but as she passed the hotel reception desk she paused to tell the clerk that there was a man trapped in a room on about the third or fourth floor.

‘Oh that’s all right,’ said the clerk. ‘We know all about that. It’s an actor rehearsing a part. The lady with him told us he was not to be disturbed.’

‘Grandma!’ Theresa spun round to find Lola grabbing at her skirts. Roger, she noticed, had also been stopped and was now in a tense conversation with a woman who looked very like his ex-wife Cynthia.

‘I think you should definitely check on him,’ Theresa explained to the desk clerk. ‘He may be acting but he doesn’t look at all well.’

‘But I . . .’