No. That’s my privilege – I’ll be giving it to her. And I’ll be returning the dictaphone too.

‘You’re all right, Josh,’ Ben said. ‘I feel I should deliver it to her myself – it’s safe in my hands, you might steal her scoops!’

Josh shrugged. ‘Ben?’ he called after the doctor who was about to descend the stairs. Ben turned and regarded him. Josh wavered and then waved the air dismissively. ‘Nothing,’ he said, returning to his room. Josh was going to say something, and he knew what it was he was going to say but the fact that he was unsure quite why he wanted to say it ultimately prevented its disclosure.

Josh always thinks before he speaks. Alex, however, does not. When Ben passed him on the stairs on his way out, Alex also asked his purpose in the auberge.

‘I’m after Cat,’ Ben explained.

‘Who isn’t!’ Alex exclaimed with an excited growl.

Cat McCabe had awoken early and sat up in bed gazing at her surroundings, already missing the room she’d have to check out of later. She committed the wallpaper design to memory, soaking up the beauty of the light filtering through from the bathroom like a waft of fine muslin. She felt so at home here and suddenly she thought of her family. She called Fen but there was no reply. She tried Pip but finding only her sister’s voice on the answering machine, albeit claiming to be Martha the Clown, she decided not to leave a message. Finally, she dialled Django.

‘Who’s there good God?’

Django only ever answered the phone like that when he was elbow-deep in some culinary venture. Forlornly, Cat cancelled the call. Less than a minute later, her phone rang.

‘No recipe,’ Django boomed, ‘no matter how intricate the instruction – regardless of milk curdling, sauce clogging or egg whites misbehaving – no recipe takes precedence over any of my nieces.’

‘Hullo, Django,’ Cat said.

‘What’s up, pretty girl?’ Django asked, slipping a wooden spoon, sticky with something resembling wallpaper paste, into the back pocket of his jeans.

Cat smiled small.

How can he tell?

‘I did something last night,’ she explained, with no shame, no embarrassment, but quietly.

‘With whom?’ Django asked, taking the spoon from his pocket and seeing whether it would stick to the glass pane in the kitchen door. It did.

‘With the doctor,’ Cat confided.

‘How lovely,’ Django enthused, because his other two nieces had provided enough details for him to deduce that the doctor was a very good idea indeed.

‘I know,’ Cat said, her voice faltering beyond her control, ‘I know.’

‘Why the tears?’ Django asked while all around him the sauce separated, egg whites collapsed and bananas went brown.

‘Because it means He’s gone,’ Cat said, ‘I’ve made Him go.’

‘Don’t capitalize that scoundrel,’ Django all but barked before softening his tone. ‘I know, darling. But you’ve let go because you could. Well done you.’

‘Haven’t I gone and scuppered any future chance?’ Cat asked, knowing the answer full well.