“Kidney à l’orange. It sounded like such a winning combination in my head.”

“And in reality?”

He grimaced. “It tastes like death and Del Monte.”

“Oh dear.” Although she’d aimed for sympathetic, her plate began to shake as she suppressed a laugh, and a rasher of bacon gave the game away by sliding out of her barm. As chief recipe developer at Pie Hard and its sister shop Pie Harder, Fergus was living his dream, and none of his ardent fan base needed to know about the occasional spectacular misses that occurred in pursuit of the much clamoured-after hits. “Back to the drawing board with this one, then?” she asked.

“Aye. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.” He crossed his legs at the ankles and tapped the tip of her nose. “Sleep okay?”

“Like a log.”

“Shift okay?”

“Yeah, not too bad,” she said, rescuing her errant rasher and avoiding his gaze.

“Thought as much. Mr. Murphy pushed a note through to say you’d parked at the wrong house again.”

“I did? Buggeration.” She sagged against her pillows, racking her brain for details of her journey home. The Murphys lived two doors down, but she couldn’t remember parking on their drive. She couldn’t even remember leaving station.

“How bad,” Ferg asked, “on a score of one to ‘See You in Coroner’s Court’?”

“Only about a three. Could’ve been worse. Trevor did quite well, considering. He lasted almost eight hours before he went off sick, so I’ll be solo tonight.”

Ferg tugged her upright, her plate and mug clattering as he set them on the bedside cabinet. “You’re better off without that knob. Get in the shower. I’ll shift your car and rally the troops, and you can tell me all about it.”

He shut the door behind him, and Jem gifted herself a moment to finish her butty, listening to the blue tits squabbling with the robins around the feeders she’d hung in the small backyard. She and Ferg had shared the terraced house for the past three years. He’d been an A&E nurse at the time of signing the lease, and they’d bonded over their mutual love of pastry, cakes, and all things calorific. She patted her arse as she rolled out of bed. The cheeks wobbled slightly beneath her palms, and she wondered how much of their current expanse was a direct result of being a prize baker’s taste-test stooge.