‘How do we know when they’ve said “Cut”?’ Sally looked over her shoulder to Eggy. ‘Do we just keep on driving till we reach Corsica?’

Eggy turned round, still acting his role, then faced Sally. ‘They look as though they’re still turning. No one’s waving us to stop or circle back or anything like that.’

Obviously Sally couldn’t phone Theresa to tell her, but she realised that somebody had to call the coastguard as soon as possible.

‘OK.’ She stared towards the horizon. Either side of the bay, dark, rocky crags loomed, jutting out of the water. She knew from experience that the most dangerous rocks were invisible, lurking feet, sometimes inches, beneath the surface.

Keeping right in the centre of the bay, Sally opened the throttle. ‘Let’s go!’

Their boat was now leaping wildly out of the water, slamming down hard on the ever-increasing waves.

Sally estimated from the direction of the wind and tide that tonight, in these conditions, whichever way a pleasure boat leaving Bellevue-sur-Mer was headed, it would be swept towards this bay. The wind was howling in from the west, and the swell was also surging eastwards.

Sally herself was finding it hard to keep this little RIB on a straight course, so God knows how amateurs, let alone kids with no experience at all, would fare on a sea as high as this one.

She looked down at the console. Thank goodness, it was a normal one. No one had tampered with the layout. There was a speedo, a couple of other gauges, on her right the throttle, and on her left a ship-to-shore emergency radio. The receiver with its curling wire was in its cradle. If she caught a glimpse of the lost boat she could call in. Sally remembered that the boat was very big and very white. But there was no use doing anything now, as the radio would only locate this boat, the RIB that she and Eggy were in.

She continued her drive towards the horizon.

Stupid bloody kids.

‘I don’t feel very well.’ Eggy, still gripping Sally’s waist, was now resting his head on her shoulder.

‘Head up, Eggy! Keep looking at the horizon.’ Sally pushed the throttle further forward. ‘And whatever you do, Eggy, do not be sick down my back!’

Theresa, Roger and Cynthia stood on the quayside stabbing at their phones, trying to find out how you called the French coastguard. Cynthia said she remembered reading stories where some English tourists, lost in the Mediterranean, had phoned the coastguard back in Falmouth, who then sent out emergency calls to the local forces in Italy or Greece or somewhere.