Not waiting for a reply, she went up the path to the house. She banged on the brass knocker. It was some time before lights were switched on inside the house and a sixtyish man in a dressing gown came to the door, opening it halfway.

‘What the fuck time d’you call this?’ he asked.

Shauna turned on her megawatt smile, hitting him with the charm offensive, tucking her left hand into her coat pocket.

‘I’m sorry it’s so late. We broke down on the road, got the car started again, and we just need a place to bed down for the night. When we saw your sign, my husband and me, we thought you might still be able to put us up. I know it’s late. I’m sorry.’

She could see the man thawing. He stepped back, running a hand over his dishevelled hair.

‘You come far then?’ he asked.

‘All the way down from Yorkshire,’ lied Shauna. ‘We’re visiting my husband’s parents in Bournemouth – his dad’s sick.’

‘Well . . . I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘You’ve got a room free then?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll go help my husband fetch the rest of the stuff,’ said Shauna, and nipped back down the path before he could change his mind.

She threw open the car door. ‘We’re in,’ she said to Josh. ‘We’re a married couple and we’ve come from Yorkshire and we’re visiting my folks in Bournemouth. My dad’s ill. OK?’

Josh nodded, picked up his bag, and together they went into the B & B. The hallway was shabby, with a dusty grandfather clock gloomily ticking away the hours. There was a half-moon table against the wall with the day’s papers on it. One of them showed that London had had its hottest day in thirty-five years, and in Malaysia ten Japanese terrorists who took over the US Embassy had left for Libya. Shauna saw the B & B owner’s eyes open wide in alarm when he saw Josh.

‘What the fuck happened to you then?’ he demanded.

‘He had a fight with his brother. Boxed his ears proper for him. The brother didn’t want to come with us, his poor old dad on his deathbed too, I think that’s disgusting, don’t you?’ said Shauna. She was so convincing, she half-believed it herself.

‘Families got to stick together,’ said the man, stepping back as Josh and Shauna crowded into the hall.

‘That’s right,’ said Shauna. ‘That’s what we told him, but he wasn’t having none of it.’

‘I’ll show you up,’ said the man, and led the way up the dingy carpeted stairs.

He paused on a landing lit with a forty-watt bulb that cast a depressingly low light. ‘In here,’ he said, and opened a white-painted door, stepping inside and flicking on a stark circular fluorescent.