In spite of the B&B, Tamsin and Callum were having a good time. They woke early each morning thanks to the ineffective curtains. While Callum showered, Tamsin knelt at the little table with the miniature kettle and the free sachets of Horlicks to make cheese and pâté sandwiches for their lunch. Then they would set out for a day on the beach, or a windy walk along the coast. Callum took his camera wherever they went. On the clifftop, he set up his tripod for a 360-degree panorama. He photographed the wildflowers in dazzling close-up, Tamsin’s blurry form just visible in the background. When they were on the beach, he sketched while she read.

Most days they ate a pub supper, but Tamsin had promised to let Callum take her out for one meal in a restaurant of his choosing. Wednesday evening saw them dressed up for dinner at The Quay, a trendy harbour-side restaurant with a dining room decorated by Damien Hirst.

They started with gin and tonics in the bar, which they drank while flicking through that day’s pictures, their heads pressed conspiratorially together over the camera screen. Halfway through the usual stock of wildflowers and seascapes, Tamsin shot out her hand to cover the camera.

Callum chuckled. ‘It’s okay, the coast’s clear.’

‘No, Callum, I don’t want to see those, they’re horrible,’ Tamsin protested; but she let Callum prise her fingers off the screen.

‘Look. Just look. You’re beautiful.’

The pictures – three of them – showed Tamsin on a secluded beach, naked except for a pair of simple black bikini bottoms. In the first picture she was lying face-up on a towel that was also the New Zealand flag, sunbathing; in the second she was on her front, her buttocks stippled red by the texture of the towel; and in the third, she was actually posing for the camera. Callum had positioned her in front of the sea, then adjusted the aperture so that the background was nothing more than a grey-blue smudge. Tamsin’s strident posture – shoulders back, chin held high – was at odds with the discomfort on her face. The corners of her mouth were tensed, as if hesitating between amusement and shame. Her hair, still wet from a recent swim, hung round her face in pointed clumps, and her knees and shoulders were dusted with the dull flat glitter of sand. Her heavy breasts swagged down and sideways; between them, the sun cast the undulations of her sternum into faint relief. One pale nipple was slightly stiffer than the other.

‘Three graces for the price of one,’ joked Callum, flicking back and forth between the pictures. He looked pleased.