Still, the main thing was that Izzie was all right, even though Em still hadn’t got to the bottom of how it had come about that her daughter had been brought back by a fellow holidaymaker, no less, staying right there on the other side of the swimming pool. How on earth had the two of them recognized each other, for starters? She didn’t even know there was another family in the third cottage, and she was not a woman to miss that sort of detail.

Anyway. Whatever. Em had plundered her booze stash and taken over a bottle of Merlot for Maggie, to thank her for her company and sanity on the Falmouth hunt, and then another for the mysterious Olivia, as thanks for her part in the story. (Yes, okay, also to have a little bit of a nosy at her.) Jesus, Em, you’ve managed to get the whole bloody gang involved in your chaos, her sister Jenny would have said, had she been here to witness the spectacle. Thank heavens she was not.

One day, Em was most definitely going to turn into the elegant, composed sort of woman she longed to be, whose life passed serenely without anyone yelling or fighting or running away. A woman like Charlotte, presumably. In the meantime, was she a person to let life knock her down? No, she was not. Which was why she’d suggested they spend the afternoon at the pool, in the hope of some happy bonding time. Izzie was kind of lukewarm about joining them and said she was going to catch up with her friends online, but everyone else gamely put on their swimming things and jumped right in. And soon they were having a good time, playing silly games together and laughing a lot, just like a proper family. The sun was out, the water was warm, Daddy Fox was drying out on his very own sun lounger and, oh goodness, George did look fantastically hot in a pair of swimming trunks. Seeing his bare sculpted chest and back, it was difficult to restrain herself from twining her legs around him under the water.