Again a click of a phone going down.

She thought she heard the word ‘shit’.

She sat up and waited. No doubt there would be another attempt.

Almost immediately the phone rang. She snatched the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘So sorry, Sally, it’s Theresa. I know it’s an unholy hour but there is a possibility that my granddaughter is heading towards Bellevue, with some weird, fat, old, bald bloke. I just need to know if you might keep an eye on the front door of the flat. Just in case . . . You know.’

‘Why couldn’t this wait for a normal time? I know it’s terrible and everything but for heaven’s sake, Theresa, I’m hardly likely to see him in the middle of the night.’

‘Sorry, Sally. I should have texted or something. I wasn’t thinking.’

Sally hung up and snuggled down into bed.

Once more the phone rang.

Sally considered ignoring it, then thought again.

‘What?’

‘Sally? I realised I hadn’t asked how it’s going down at La Mosaïque?’

‘Don’t even ask. It’s been a catastrophe. We need you back soon. Today William is cooking.’

‘But he—’

‘I know. He doesn’t cook. But he’s refusing to do front of house and, frankly, in these circumstances, I am sick of being in the kitchen too . . . Look, Theresa, I know you’ve got more important things on your plate but when you get back, don’t worry, I’ll give you a blow-by-blow account.’

‘Another thing is that I left my photo album in the kitchen. Could you put it through my door, or safely downstairs in the cellar or something. Some of those photos are really precious to me and the grease . . .’

‘Sure, sure.’

‘Sorry again, Sally.’

‘Me too, Theresa. You get some sleep. I hope you get some better news soon.’

Though Sally tried to drop off again she could not. She lay gazing out of the window at the dark sea, with tiny red, white and green lights of moored yachts bobbing their bright reflections on to the ink black.

Sally next got to thinking of Theresa’s granddaughter. How horrible if she had really run off with some old bald man. She couldn’t just do nothing. If that had been Marianne at fifteen, she would have been terrified. She decided to text Carol who would be out in the van tomorrow morning. She sat up and tapped out a text asking her to keep an eye on Theresa’s flat whenever she parked up on the quay and to keep her eye out both for Chloe and some old bald man.

Although Sally felt worried about Theresa’s missing grandchild, she felt a touch of bitterness too. Her own children had not been the settling-down kind. Marianne was now commuting between London, New York and Zurich on her incomprehensible financial adventures. Sally’s daughter was far too self-preoccupied to think of giving her grandchildren, while her son Tom, though living in nearby Nice, where he ran a small art gallery, was the flipside of the Marianne coin – too much the hippy. He showed no signs of wanting to marry or finding a nice woman to give her a grandchild.