‘JACK!’ Em said loudly. ‘I didn’t mean in terms of making more excuses. I meant, what do you have to say to the shopkeeper? To this man whose family depends on his shop, whose mortgage probably does as well. How about apologizing and seeing if there’s any way you can make it up? For all we know,’ she added, getting into her stride, ‘he might want to call the police.’ She eyed the shopkeeper anxiously. Please don’t call the police, she begged him, with her best stab at telepathy. You wouldn’t, would you?

‘Sorry,’ Jack mumbled.

He’d tanned during the last month, from all the tennis and cricket he’d been playing, but he seemed to have paled under the shop’s bright lights. He was actually kind of nauseous-looking, now that Em scrutinized him closer. Oh, Christ. He wasn’t about to throw up, was he? What on earth had they been drinking? Thank goodness George wasn’t here to see what reprobates her children were.

‘Anything else?’ she prompted sternly, when this turned out to be the extent of his apology. ‘Jack?’

‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, a little louder this time and with more sincerity. His green eyes were troubled as he raised them to the angry shopkeeper. ‘It was a stupid game – a dare. I shouldn’t have done it.’

He glanced sideways just a fraction towards Amelia, and something flashed across his face – reproach perhaps or irritation, Em couldn’t tell. Then realization dawned: this whole little drama had been about impressing the girl, she was sure of it. Showing off. Oh, Jack. Trust him to go too far and get caught. Typical!

‘Well . . .’ the shopkeeper said, his eyebrows furrowing as he considered his next move, and Em, spotting his hesitation, leapt in.

‘Can I buy something lovely from your shop to make up for it?’ she blurted out, on impulse. ‘And have my son promise never to set foot in here again? He really is sorry. We’ve all done daft things as teenagers, right?’

The item that Jack had pocketed and attempted to steal turned out to be one of the carved stone birds, and for a moment she thought about buying it to leave on their mantelpiece at home, as a reminder to him: crime doesn’t pay. But then the shopkeeper said, ‘Or, of course, if you wanted something a bit special . . .’ before gesturing to a rather beautiful oil painting of the harbour, with a definite hint of threat about his body language.