Shrugging off this thought, she helped Cordelia over the threshold and, to the steady rhythm of young Charlie’s snoring in his basement bedroom, climbed up the concrete steps to the kitchen.

All seemed quiet and as she’d left it, so she shed her coat, helped Cordelia off with hers and crossed over to the range to put the kettle on the hob. By the sound of it, Rita and Ivy were already heading for their bedroom – so excited they’d forgotten to say goodnight – and she could hear the familiar sawing of Ron’s snores coming from the dining room.

‘Would anyone else like tea?’ she asked, kicking off her high-heeled shoes.

Sarah, Jane and Danuta shook their heads, and after kissing her goodnight, made their way up to their bedrooms. Cordelia plumped down in her favourite fireside chair and gave a sigh of pleasure as she too eased off her shoes and wriggled her toes. ‘Yes, please, dear. A nice cuppa will be just the thing to help me get to sleep.’

She looked around the room and frowned. ‘Something’s different, but I’m blowed if I can see what it is,’ she muttered.

Peggy leaned against the sink and wondered what Ron’s mucky old gardening glove was doing on the draining board alongside a mangled tube of antiseptic cream. She ignored them to look around the kitchen and immediately spotted what it was that had changed.

‘Someone’s shifted the dresser away from the wall and tidied up all the clutter on top,’ she said with surprise. ‘Now, why on earth would they do that?’

Cordelia shrugged. ‘Beats me, dear. Who’s to say what men get up to when left to their own devices?’

Peggy thought about those sheets on the line which, now she came to think of it, had come from a double bed, not a child’s single or cot. She picked up the gardening glove and saw the fresh bloodstains inside it which might explain the tube of cream, but who on earth would have been gardening at night – and why shift and tidy the dresser? It was all very odd.

‘Something has been going on here, Cordy,’ she said darkly. ‘And I aim to find out what.’

‘Oh dear. Don’t tell me Ron’s been up to his shenanigans again,’ sighed Cordelia, still twiddling her toes. ‘You’d have thought he’d have learnt by now to behave himself.’

‘Watch the kettle, Cordy. I’ll be back in a minute.’

Peggy didn’t wait for a reply and walked quickly into the hall in her stockinged feet. Checking that Daisy was asleep in her bed, she continued on into the dining room where she immediately smelled the sharp and unmistakable tang of disinfectant.

Puzzled by this, she frowned, and her disapproval deepened as she spotted the empty rum and whiskey bottles and noted that all the beer was gone too. It seemed they’d had quite a party despite everything Ron had promised, and now he was stretched out in the armchair by the hearth, Harvey at his feet, both snoring fit to bust.