‘Are you really writing an article about them?’

He grinned. ‘I am. Bit of role reversal, don’t you think? The biter bit. Especially Talbin, who’s a very strange man. I can’t quite figure him out. Anyway, who cares about him? How about going out with me next week? That’ll give this fuss a few more days to die down.’ He drained his glass. ‘I’d better leave you in peace now, and anyway I’ve got to visit my mother in hospital. She’s a fearsome old bat, but I’m rather fond of her.’

When she was alone, Sophie changed out of her interview clothes into something old and extremely comfortable. She looked in the mirror and grimaced. She looked positively scruffy now. Then she forgot about her appearance as she started writing again.

This time she managed to work steadily. Things were going to get back to normal soon and the paparazzi would stop chasing her, she was sure.

As for the problem with Andi, things would settle down, of course they would. They always had before.

That was what happened when you lived alone. You got things out of proportion.

Jez went to see the house again and it was, as he’d remembered, very suitable for his present needs, far better than any of the others. He had quite a retinue now, something which both amused and irritated him. Due to that damned intruder, Kevin and Craig took it in turns to stay the night, with a third man filling in as necessary to give them a break.

The house was even nicer than he’d remembered, and though it was shabby and in need of modernisation, the rooms were big, the ceilings high, and quite simply it felt right.

‘Buy it,’ he told Donna, strolling over to a window to look wistfully towards the house next door. That one was much smaller, but still bigger than average. The estate agent had told Donna that another of these huge old houses had been demolished there and the land split into four building blocks with a new ‘executive residence’ on each. Strange that Jez had never noticed the other three houses before, but he could see them all clearly from the upstairs window. He could see the old gate too, which had led him to Sophie.

He leaned forward a little, smiling as he saw her come out into her garden, hair gleaming like molten honey in the sunlight. She tipped something from a packet into a bird-feeder, nipping off a couple of dead flowers as she moved away. On the lawn she stood still and lifted her face to the sun, a gesture of such natural pleasure that he ached to join her and do the same.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Donna said from behind him.

He spun round. ‘Is it so obvious?’

‘That you fancy her? Yeah.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Stop me if I’m out of order, Jez, but I’ve never seen you so taken with a woman, not since I joined the team, anyway. She’s not your usual sort of love interest, either.’