He’d been thinking about it half the night. Getting it up had never been one of his problems; in fact, he’d often been eager for sex when Steph pleaded either exhaustion or wanting to watch the next episode of some box set. Lately, his libido seemed to have disappeared.

His startling conclusion was that he hadn’t been able to do it last time with Steph because of guilt over money, and he couldn’t do it with Suzi because of guilt over Steph.

His first mistake was to murmur, ‘I’m so sorry about last night,’ on waking up together, adding: ‘I promise it was nothing to do with you.’

To Suzi, this was the equivalent of throwing down the sexual gauntlet. Of course it was nothing to do with her! Her guiding principle had been learned from supermodel Cara Delevingne’s great-aunt Doris, a dazzling siren of the Thirties, that ‘there was no such thing as an impotent man, just an incompetent woman.’ Winston Churchill had once told this racy beauty that she could bring a corpse to orgasm, and Suzi certainly wasn’t giving up on David. It might only be eight a.m., but she smiled with all the seductive allure of Great-Aunt Doris as she began to remove her nightdress.

‘Actually . . .’ David sounded feeble even to himself. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cup of tea?’

‘So how are things going with the food festival?’ Jean-Christophe asked as they packed up their things for another fishing trip.

‘Excellently, as a matter of fact,’ beamed Philippe. ‘People are falling over themselves to take stalls. We may not even have enough room in the field.’ After their success with, if not the uncatchable carp, then still a pretty big fish, he put some high-quality minced steak into his fishing bag with the usual hemp seeds, tiger nuts, sweetcorn and bread from last night’s table.

‘And when’s the big radio interview?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Philippe grinned. ‘I’m very honoured, apparently. I’m going to be interviewed by the famous Françoise Gilbert.’

‘Wow!’ Jean-Christophe whistled. ‘Even I’ve heard of her.’

‘She does their morning show, the one with the big audiences. I’m amazed. With a little story like ours I thought I’d be on in the middle of the night.’

‘Don’t forget, you’re famous too!’

‘Was famous. Anyway, I’d hardly call myself that.’

‘Tsk, tsk, Papa. Chefs are the new rock’n’roll stars, everyone knows that.’

‘I always thought they should be concentrating on their cooking. Anyway, petit paresseux, if we don’t get moving, the fish will have gone back to bed.’

Meredith woke up and stretched. Nelly was right in the middle of the bed. No wonder her back ached a little. She was almost dangling over the edge.