Caroline listens intently as Fran recounts the details of her conversations with Renata, Phoenix and Damian, then raises her eyebrows when she mentions Kate’s interruption.

‘Was she listening?’

‘I don’t think she could have overheard but she was most definitely skulking around.’

Caroline dabs at her mouth with her napkin. ‘I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall during Renata and Phoenix’s chat. They might be nervous about opening up to you but I bet they talk about the sweat lodge deaths amongst themselves. Or when they’re drunk …’

She raises her eyebrows at Fran, who has no idea what she’s hinting at.

‘How good are you at games?’ Caroline asks.

‘I’m quite good at Cluedo and I’m excellent at Scrabble. I can’t remember the last time—’

‘Drinking games.’

‘Oh. Never played one.’

Caroline looks at her incredulously. ‘Never? Not even spin the bottle? Not at university?’

‘No, at university I mostly spent my free time …’ Fran’s cheeks burn as faded memories of Gunnar’s naked body flash up in her mind. ‘I did a lot of studying.’

‘Of course you did. Anyway,’ Caroline leans back in her chair and looks towards the living room area, ‘here’s the plan.’

As far as new experiences go, playing a drinking game with two twenty-somethings, a thirty-something and Caroline is about as excruciating as they come. In fact, the only thing getting Fran through it is the drink itself. She rests her weight into the sofa, takes the shot glass Phoenix is proffering, and braces herself. She’s done shots before – she’s not a total square – but not for twenty-odd years and, after three in a row, or is it four, just the smell of the tequila makes her stomach twist.

After an hour or so of general chatting and drinking they began the games night by playing two truths and a lie. Fran proved herself to be the world’s worst detective. Not only did she fail to spot the lies told by Phoenix (that he was on the Big Brother shortlist), Renata (that she was distantly related to Princess Michael of Kent) and Damian (that he went to the roughest school in Glasgow), but she completely messed up her own turn, going into far too much detail about her truths (completing the Greek Cyclades swimming challenge when she was thirty-two and the urban fox she fed from her match-box sized garden in London) whilst being far too brief about her lie (‘I am an ordained priest’).

‘Right,’ Phoenix says, ‘neck that and we’ll get on to the next game, Fuzzy Bunnies.’

‘Noooo.’ Caroline groans from the floor where she’s sitting cross legged between Damian and Renata. ‘That’s boring. Let’s play I Have Never.’

Fran frowns. ‘I have never what?’

Caroline rolls her eyes. ‘You’re what, five years older than me and you’ve never heard of I Have Never?’