She chose a summer dress from her wardrobe, a ‘go-anywhere’ number of dusky purple spangled with white shooting stars that would work whether they stayed in or went out … and wouldn’t crumple if cast off onto the bedroom floor. A few minutes with eyeliner and mascara and she was ready.

It was as she clattered down from her loft bedroom that she heard voices floating up the stairs. She paused in surprise as the sound of muffled laughter floated after it. Was it coming from inside the Roundhouse?

Could Aaron have brought someone round? Or had she forgotten to lock the door and one of the cottage guests thought it was OK to just wander in? Putting on a spurt, she ran down the rest of the flight and then the next, jumping down into the open-plan ground floor and putting on the brakes abruptly to see the front door open and luggage piled on the flagstones.

Then a woman dragged a man in through the front door, saying exasperatedly, ‘Behave yourself, Hugo! I’ll have you know that this is a respectable village.’ The sides of her head were shaved and the remaining chestnut hair hung in several plaits right down to her waist. She wore only a bra with a pair of shorts that were more hole than denim and tattoos of fairies and elves danced up her arms and across her shoulders. ‘Clancy, you’re here!’ the woman exclaimed, espying her and throwing her arms wide.

It took the cogs in Clancy’s brain several seconds to mesh. ‘Alice?’ she enquired uncertainly. The last Alice she’d seen had been significantly more sophisticated and conventional. Tailored, even. ‘Alice!’ Clancy shook her head in disbelief not just that Alice had appeared before her so suddenly that there ought to have been an accompanying puff of smoke but that she looked as if she’d dressed from Camden Market and wore tattoos.

Alice laughed, making the large tunnel earring in her left lobe shake along with the flesh pushed up by her purple velvet bra. ‘Yes, it’s me. Surprise! It’s so fantastic to see you!’ She enveloped Clancy in a big cousinly hug.

Now the first instant of shock was over, Clancy was able to hug her back, a flame of pleasure igniting inside her despite her shock. ‘Wow, it’s so great to see you!’

‘I know!’ Alice beamed. ‘And this is my husband, Hugo.’

Clancy could hardly believe her ears. ‘Husband? You’re married? Why didn’t you tell me?’

Alice squealed with laughter. ‘Because I knew I was coming home and wanted it to be a surprise!’

Stunned, Clancy disengaged from Alice to let her hand be shaken by the burly man who was apparently her cousin-in-law. He wore a black muscle vest along with studded combats and his dark beard went down so far that it met his chest hair coming up. A row of rings glinted in his eyebrow.

‘Correct,’ he said with a small smile. ‘She’s Mrs Hugo Suffolk now. We’ve come to see whether she’s still allowed into Norfolk.’ He laughed at his own joke, which had been delivered in precise Queen’s English. He sounded like Made in Chelsea but looked like he’d been living on a beach … which he could have been, of course. From the beery smell that hung about him and the size of his pupils, what she had no trouble in deciding was that he’d been drinking.