Second, charm the pants off the bride’s dad, who was paying her bill. He might even give her a tip if she played her cards right.

Third, tell the best man he was very much barking up the wrong tree.

Jordan swung her beat-up Ford Capri into the space in front of her Brighton flat and shut off the engine. She sat for a few long moments, the only sound the roar of a passing quartet of pub-goers, who’d just left The Rusty Bucket, her local. She opened her handbag and fingered the crisp notes the bride’s father had pressed into her hand when she’d left. A thousand-pound tip from him. A snotty, drunk hug from the bride that had left a stain on her dress; and a sigh of resignation from the best man as he realised his normally winning smile wasn’t going to cash in this time.

A bang on her car roof made Jordan jump. She turned so fast, her neck did that popping thing at the base. An arrow of pain surged to her brain. She winced as her best friend and flatmate Karen grinned at her through the passenger-side window. She was making a winding motion with her hand, almost as if Jordan’s car didn’t have electric windows. Which it didn’t.

Jordan leaned over, her face still furrowed after her neck spasm. She grasped the window winder and gave it a few turns. The sound it made could never be described as healthy.

Karen’s mouth turned up at the sides before she spoke. “Hello, flatmate who I haven’t seen all week. Question: why are you sitting in your car like a weirdo?”

“Because I am a weirdo?”

“That’s a given.” Her friend leaned in further, both hands resting on the Capri’s half-down window.

Jordan eyed it, hoping she didn’t lean too hard. Her car was a piece of living history, and as such, needed handling with care.

“Why are you clutching your neck like that?”

“Because it just did that weird popping thing.”

Karen tilted her head. “It’s because you work too hard and therefore your body is too tense. You need to relaaaaaaaaax.” As she said the last word, Karen moved her head dreamily, as if she’d never had a neck spasm in her life. “So did you marry off another rich schmuck today?”

“My mission was completed without a hiccup.” Jordan rolled her neck tentatively. No pain. She thought back to Emily’s meltdown just before the service. How she’d mopped it up, and then reassured Emily her marriage would survive.

Jordan had been in the job too long.

Platitudes and lies fell from her lips like confetti.