‘Tell that to Ash.’ She gave him a withering look, accustomed to the chat-up wind-ups he’d never dream of trying on when six feet of hard-muscled Turner was around. ‘Where did all the teenage girls in Sellotape go?’

‘Party in Rous Compton.’ He pulled a roll-up from behind his ear, trying hard not to look bothered. ‘Friends of Amelia’s. Skinny dipping, recreational drugs, kedgeree. Not my scene.’

‘She dumped you, then?’

‘Other way round.’ Cigarette in mouth, he closed one eye and squinted at Bridge’s gyrating backside. ‘I wasn’t the one who came dressed in the rubbish bag, yeah?’

Carly knew Flynn’s rickety love life well enough to see through the bluff, but she was kind enough to let it go. Ash’s mates were big kids in denial that they’d turned thirty, all the bad-lad talk, tattoos and Tinder shags only a blink away from the ruler-flicking, ball-kicking, cider-swigging fronts they’d perfected at thirteen to try to look cool hanging out by the Orchard Estate garages. Underneath it, they were loyal friends and hard workers, happy to settle down and make their home a stone’s throw from the place they grew up. Most had never lived outside the county, let alone travelled to war zones like Ash. He was their hard man, the lone wolf who roamed away from the pack, disappearing without warning for hours at a time, as often as not into his own head.

She wondered if he was back at home, lost in one of his shoot-’em-up console games, music blotting out the gunfire, mad at her for stopping out with Bridge so long. His black moods ambushed them too unpredictably and often for her to ever relax. She checked her phone, the New Year texts and Facebook messages from her old gang of army wives coming thick and fast. Nothing from Ash.

Tucking his roll-up back behind his ear, Flynn swaggered off to dance as the music changed, trying to get Bridge to slut-drop to ‘Sexy Chick’, both ending up on the floor, roaring with laughter.

The memorial hall had filled up with an after-party crowd, its hardcore of Turners diluted by other village teens – she recognised Petra Gunn’s eldest son dancing with one of the vet’s toothy daughters – and a few of the old-faithful, like the bearded chair of the Parish Council who always felt obliged to show their faces to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, all nervously still wearing their coats in anticipation of a quick getaway. For now, the Turner teen tribe had turned its attention from fighting to necking, but Carly didn’t doubt fists would fly soon, the dance floor seething with grudge matches. At its centre, she could see sister-in-law Janine, a body-stockinged, size 20 missile with three-inch panto-themed nails and a swinging micro bag, giving several arch enemies the evils.

Bridge panted up, one false eyelash missing, the recently applied mascara already sliding off. ‘This is the best craic I’ve had in ages! Flynn’s a laugh, isn’t he? Will you look at that? Classic!’