They had spent the last hour making love all over the ground floor of the cottage – on the floor, the sofa, against the fridge and, briefly, on the crackle-glaze table until the legs started to give way. Upcycled furniture lay toppled and upended everywhere, the brightly coloured cushions and throws scattered far and wide, along with biscuits, fallen Christmas cards and their abandoned clothes. Aunt Broda’s poo emoji jumper was in the kitchen sink, Aleš’s beanie was hanging from the wood-burner handle. His booming voice was telling her he loved his little kitten, little flower, little frog (when Aleš whispered sweet nothings, the whole village heard – he had no volume control). It had been clumsy, irrepressible, New Year reunion sex. Fantasy Ash, shut in the cellar throughout, had not been invited to join in. It was her husband’s red, eye-bulging face above its big beard she’d been with to the end, even if she couldn’t bring herself to look at it.

‘I can’t believe that was the first time we’ve made love all this year, baby,’ she sighed as he pulled on his pants and headed into the bathroom.

‘Huh?’ He brought out a loo roll and threw it to her.

‘Romantic!’ She caught it and unrolled some to clean herself up.

‘This is the first day of the year.’ Aleš often missed her ironic jokes, especially after sex. ‘I made flight change especially.’

Bridge was just as guilty of abandoning thoughts. It had taken an hour from her husband coming home – and five minutes after he’d come – for her to sit up in shock now and ask, ‘Where are the kids?’

*

Luca followed Ronnie down from the yard to flat pasture where Beck was prowling the round pen, a white lion in his cage.

‘Where d’you find him?’

‘Sold through a little West Country auction ring, can you believe? No papers of course. Must have changed hands a dozen or more times before that. His provenance had long gone – came with a replacement passport with the name Beckham – but my auctioneer friend spotted that he was branded and entire, so did some microchip detective work and called me. Astonishing he still had his bollocks on, isn’t it?’

Luca said nothing, thinking the horse lucky to still be alive at all.

As they approached the pen, Beck began to charge around again, snorting wildly, a fast-moving blur kicking up sand.

‘He’s his own worst enemy, poor chap,’ Ronnie sighed as they waited for the wall of death circles to slow enough for Luca to go in. ‘We’ve tried turning him out on grass, but he panics and breaks every fence. He’s not been ridden in over a year. I refuse to give up on him; he’s a grandson of Heraldik and elite graded, which as you know is to sports breeding what a newly discovered, signed Picasso was to the art world.’

‘I bet you’re popular.’

‘He won’t mount the dummy and he tries to savage his mares. I can’t stand him at stud until we sort that out. That’s why I need you on his case straight away. If we can get his name out there by March, there’s a chance we’ll have a full book. I’ve done a bit of word of mouth, but I can hardly spread the word far if he’s going to try to kill all his wives.’