Holly traced Charlie’s face in the photograph with a turmeric-stained fingertip. ‘Yup. I didn’t twig before when he came into the shop, but now I’ve seen this photo again it’s all coming back to me.’ To be fair, Charlie’s hairstyle had changed and he’d filled out a bit so that he wasn’t lanky any more, and he’d obviously ditched the glasses, too, but the sparkle in his eyes and that smile were instantly recognisable now she’d seen the photo again. ‘Charlie Thorpe is Lovely Charlie, who looked after me when I had no one to talk to at that conference.’

‘Well then,’ Vivian said. ‘Perhaps that’s something to mention to him if you bump into him again.’

Holly had said to her mother, in passing, that Charlie had come into the shop but not told her the exact nature of their conversation, as she was still a little embarrassed by it all. ‘I doubt he’ll have remembered me anyway,’ she laughed, putting the photograph back into the envelope. ‘After all, it wasn’t until I saw this photo that I realised we’d met before. And he’s probably met loads of women, er, people since then. It’s not even worth bringing it up. I’ll just look like an idiot.’

‘If you say so,’ Vivian raised an eyebrow. ‘But you never know… he might have thought of you all these years as Lovely Holly, just as you thought about him.’

Holly really did laugh, then. ‘Mum, there’s no way I’m ever owning up to that, especially now. And if you breathe a word of this to Dad or Rachel, I’ll burn the whole bloody suitcase!’

Vivian laughed too, well aware of her daughter’s legendary impulsiveness, and in no doubt that she was serious. ‘Fair enough. But perhaps it’s worth keeping that photo somewhere safe. After all, if he ever gets into the Cabinet, you could flog your story to the Daily Mail.’

‘Nothing happened, Mum,’ Holly said. ‘We held hands and he kissed me goodnight. Hardly grounds for an actual kiss-and-tell story, is it?’

‘Oh, the media can make a story out of anything these days,’ Vivian replied. ‘And you never know, it might pay the lease on your shop for a month or two.’

‘I own the place, remember?’ Holly replied. ‘Bricks, mortar, concept and execution, thanks to Grandfather. I don’t think I’ll ever need to sell that story.’

‘Still worth keeping hold of it,’ Vivian said. ‘But I must get back to Dad, anyway. He’s having one of his days.’

‘Is everything all right, Mum?’ Holly was aware that her mother had to deal with her father’s occasional bouts of anxiety and had done a lot to support them both over the years.