‘Which is why you can understand my reluctance to buy a château in France. Meredith, I look forward to meeting you when my wife drags me over there. Good luck with your wedding business. Naturally I hope it’s going to be a big flop.’

‘Thanks, Sam,’ Meredith grinned. ‘And the same to you!’

‘I wonder what’s taking so long?’ Sophie asked Steph.

David put his head round the door. ‘I’m just popping into town,’ he announced briskly. Steph was so taken up with the meeting that she didn’t even notice that this was the second day running he’d suddenly disappeared without any real explanation. ‘That young man from the restaurant is here. Shall I send him in?’

They both got up, grateful for the diversion.

‘Jean-Christophe, salut,’ Steph greeted him. ‘Can we offer you a coffee?’

‘That would be delightful, madame.’ He bowed with charming old-fashioned courtesy, while his dark eyes flashed amusement at his lack of Parisian cool. ‘I thought it might be a good idea if I came and had a look round before I start tomorrow?’ he explained. ‘Then I can decide which implements to bring. I always carry my own knives anyway.’ He gestured to a leather pouch tied to his waist under his light jacket.

He removed it with all the panache of a young Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven. ‘My knife collection. Given to me by my father, who was given it by his father, who lives with us. He was a great chef. Sadly he now has dementia.’

Steph had just returned with the coffee. ‘Yes, I had heard,’ she commented sympathetically. ‘That must be rough on all of you.’

Jean-Christophe shrugged. ‘Mainly my father. As well as running the restaurant he has to go chasing off half the night trying to find Grand-père.’ There was a sudden flash of humour in his dark eyes. ‘No wonder my father sometimes looks like he has just come out of the grave! Last time Grand-père ran off he found him in a barn near Limeuil, covered in cow shit; pardonnez-moi for the language!’

‘No apology necessary,’ grinned Steph. ‘Your grasp of the idiom is admirable! Oh dear, poor Philippe, and of course your poor grandfather. Is there not some kind of sheltered housing you could consider, or is that not a French concept?’

‘My father would not hear of anything like that,’ shrugged Jean-Christophe. ‘Grand-père has a free spirit, he says, and he couldn’t bear to see it crushed. How would I like it, he asks me, to be stuck in a home for old folks, dribbling in front of la télé all day long?’

Steph sighed. ‘No indeed.’ It was getting closer for them all.

Sophie had been silent, just listening. It was all so far outside her own experience.