Not in January, thought Carly. Not unless she was burying a body in the garden. She stepped outside to call Ash. ‘Skully still with you?’

‘Long gone.’ She could tell he was fibbing.

‘I need his number, then.’

‘Why?’

‘Favour for a friend.’

‘Who?’

She felt a fresh layer of misgivings settle. ‘Bridge.’

‘What’s she want?’

‘Usual reason someone would want Skully.’ It was a familiar game, shadow boxing around a bluff, pretending to know more than she did, hoping he’d let something slip.

But the only thing slipping was Ash’s finger across the screen button, cancelling the call with a quick ‘okay.’ A few seconds later, he sent through a vCard for Skully which Carly forwarded to Bridge with the warning: Don’t leave him alone in your house.

‘Helloooo!’

Carly pocketed her phone and Janine went into dusting overdrive as Petra burst in, dressed in mud-stained breeches, carrying mugs of coffee for them.

‘Forgive me! I went straight from my ride to the plotting shed. Had to get some ideas down. Everything all right, ladies?’ she asked distractedly, hurrying towards the stairs, then swinging back. ‘Carly, I need to talk to you about something later. Are you still staying on to help?’

‘As long as you’re okay for me to fetch my kids first? Their nan has the chiropodist coming.’

‘Mum’s got bunions the size of wine gums,’ Janine elaborated.

‘How lovely…’ Petra wasn’t listening, gazing instead at the huge multicoloured chandelier they dreaded dusting, a gift from her publisher in her heyday. ‘I have got the most sensational hero for the new book,’ she breathed. ‘I can’t wait to lock myself in a room with him.’

‘Bit of a Christian Grey, is he?’ Janine asked eagerly.

‘Much sexier.’ She pulled out her phone to show them. ‘My hacking buddy just WhatsApped this.’

‘Oh!’ Carly baulked at the sight of Bridge with a fat lip.

‘Sorry, that’s the selfie she took after a disagreement with the love of her life. Check this one out.’ A clip of a rider on a bronco-ing white horse started playing.

Carly pretended to watch, her mind racing, her hands immediately throbbing. Bridge had told Carly that Aleš didn’t want her to go back to work, that she had a job interview today; their rows were legendary and Aleš was huge and scary-looking.

As soon as she was alone, she called Ash. ‘This thing with Bridge wanting Skully’s number, maybe you should check it out?’

‘Don’t worry, bae. Whatever it is, he’s not going to be interested. See you later, yeah.’

‘Wait!’ She stopped him ringing off this time. ‘I think her other half might have clocked her.’

‘That’s their business.’

She thought back to Bridge, the frustrated stay-at-home-mum in a onesie, casting a spell to break them both free from closing the front door on dreams and ambitions. It’s not like that was really going to happen. Carly still had a bottle of bleach in one hand, a bucket in the other and a husband in a bad headspace. When Bridge had told her that she had an interview at the school, she’d just as quickly dismissed it as ‘low grade enough to preserve Aleš’s ego’. Nothing changed round here.