After a bit more car talk Lilly, having finished her cider, hopped back in her Land Rover and sped off. No doubt to inform her family that Beverley and her chump boyfriend had satisfactorily done whatever it was they were supposed to have done.

I decided that it was time for the chump boyfriend to find out exactly what that was – especially since we were still at the scene of the crime.

At the far end of the car park was the start of a footpath that led along the river bank. Overlooked by a wooded hillside, it struck me as a nice shady place to have a chat about shady business. We walked in silence until we’d gone far enough for the Riverside Inn to be hidden behind the curve in the path.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Just what were we doing last night?’

‘I’m hurt you don’t remember.’

‘What else were we doing?’

Beverley bobbed her head from side to side.

‘We were helping out,’ she said. ‘As well as the other thing.’

‘Helping out who?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ she said.

‘I think I have a right to know the truth,’ I said.

She sighed.

‘You see this lovely river here? Got lots of potential but no one to look after it – to care about it,’ she said.

‘Apart from the National Rivers Authority,’ I said.

‘Not that kind of care,’ she said. ‘And do you want to know or not?’

There was a sensation then of disgruntled suburban driver, of car wax and loud stereo, of someone shouting in what I learnt later was probably Korean. I realised that I hadn’t felt any flashes of Beverley’s true nature all morning. With it came a rush of excitement and desire that I was almost totally sure originated with me – almost totally sure.

‘Do your worst,’ I said

‘It just needed a little spark, a little passion to, you know, get it going,’ she said.

I had to think about that for a bit.

‘Are you saying we inseminated a river?’ I asked.

‘Not exactly,’ said Beverley. ‘It was a bit more . . . diffuse than that.’

I remembered frog reproduction from school, the female lays a huge pile of eggs and the male turns up later and basically hoses them down. It did seem to me that the species had been hard done by in the sex department.

‘Are you saying I did it like a frog?’

It was Beverley’s turn to pause and work something out. She wasn’t happy when she did.

‘Ah, fuck no,’ said Beverley. ‘What kind of fucked-up mind do you have, Peter? Yuck.’

‘So it’s not like that then?’

Beverley stuck out her tongue and made a face.

‘How could you even go there?’ she asked. ‘Now I’ve got that image stuck in my mind. Frogs, please.’

‘That’s what you made it sound like.’

‘Did not.’

‘Then what is it like?’