Dad was silent but he didn’t look at me. And last night, he’d diplomatically said they were very tired after all the excitement of the Frobishers and were going to have an early night. At eight thirty. I’d thanked him with my eyes. Up until then I’d done rather well: had said on my return that there was nothing at all to worry about, and that the police were just making routine enquiries, now that they’d caught the intruder, which was absolutely standard procedure. I’d cooked us all scrambled eggs on toast and watched Gogglebox with them, which we all loved. But at one particularly hilarious moment, I hadn’t laughed, and Dad had looked my way and caught me staring into the middle distance, no doubt looking rather tragic. That’s when he’d suggested an early night.

Luckily Helena had sent me an inspired text saying – ‘Please tell Mum how excited I am! How lucky that Imo and I are both off together!’ – which I was able to show her over breakfast. She took the phone as I passed it to her, then got her reading glasses out of their case and peered. She read it aloud slowly, word by word, as old people do, and then her face cleared with joy.

‘Oh! How marvellous! And what a lucky coincidence!’

I took the phone back. ‘But she says she’s booked a table for lunch at the Rose and Crown just for the three of us, because apparently we have to go through all the power of attorney and inheritance tax stuff.’ I rolled my eyes.

‘Power of …’

‘Remember the girls are going to do that for us,’ said Dad helpfully, but his voice was gruff. ‘Take all the business side of things out of our hands.’

‘Oh, that’s good.’ Mum’s face cleared again. ‘Yes, you were finding it all a bit much, weren’t you, darling?’

That wasn’t happening yet. The power of attorney. It might, one day, and Helena had discussed it with Dad, but at the moment he was still quite capable. That’s what I mean by whoppers. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Dad and I communed with our eyes, and I thanked him. I also tried to convey that I’d talk to him later, but it was quite hard, all that, in just one glance.

My mother’s no fool, but she was clearly convinced because my father was, often the narrative of their marriage. Added to which, she was already so full of skippy excitement about the cottage that when Helena and Imo did arrive, she could barely pause to kiss them on the cheeks, hurrying off immediately to find them some wellies. When we all got to the cottage door, she then informed them it was shoes off.