Sometimes Meredith would notice a beautiful butterfly and ask him about it, and he would always know. His knowledge of nature was encyclopaedic. The sun would be beating down on her back and she would run ahead, laughing. And when they got to the village he would buy her a delicious, flaky pain au chocolat, fresh from the baker’s oven, and whisper not to tell her mother about it. Her mother was forever carping that he spoiled Meredith too much anyway.

On the way back he would tell her about the region, its history, the wars that had shaped it, what made the landscape so special. They would cross the river on a small narrow bridge that swayed when it was windy, like something from Indiana Jones, and halfway home they would always stop at the same spot, where they had a perfect view of the château on the other side. It was the most beautiful building Meredith had ever seen, built of golden stone, with four turrets that looked to a child’s eyes like giant pepperpots. It even had its own moat, as every proper castle should. She could just imagine Rapunzel letting down her hair from one of the towers, or one of the Disney princesses waiting for her prince to come and rescue her.

‘Now there’s a real château!’ her father had said. ‘None of your nineteenth-century rubbish. Think of all the history that’s taken place there. Tell you what, one day I’ll buy it for you and we can run away and live there. I’m sure your mother would be all for it,’ he added with a grin.

And they had both laughed and gone back across the rickety bridge to the campsite, where Meredith grabbed her things before dashing off to find her friends for a swim in the wide, shallow river.

And now, all these years later, a very strange thing had happened. A couple of months ago Meredith, flying to Berlin for a meeting with some banks, had opened an in-flight magazine. There, in an article about France, she had come across a photograph of their very own château.

At first she dismissed it as a silly coincidence; but when she idly browsed places to stay near the château and Steph’s B&B came up, she decided that was it. She was going to drop everything and go there. It would mean she could say goodbye to her father properly and catch up with Steph at the same time.

And here she was.

She handed her tray back to the attendant with a smile and headed for the toilet before the masked sleepers woke up and took it over, working their way through all the goodies in their freebie Calvin Klein bags and forgetting the existence of anyone who might be stuck outside, desperate for the loo.