He continued to face straight ahead, making it hard to discern his expression, but the tips of his ears were definitely tinged pink. ‘I sat through enough Charis House Spectaculars listening to teenage boys destroy the same three chords to never want to hear them again. Although Adam was the exception in managing to make them sound half decent.’ He paused to check the rear-view mirror. ‘When it comes to talent it was nothing compared to, say, someone playing an original piano piece in the key of F minor.’

‘You think I should have beaten Adam that year?’ Henry’s robot memory was disturbing. I couldn’t even remember the key that song was written in, and I was the one who wrote and performed it.

‘Yes.’

I shook my head. ‘Adam’s band were incredible. I was surprised to come second.’

‘Adam’s band were good.’ Henry slowed to a stop for a red light, giving him the opportunity to glance over at me. ‘You were better.’

He picked my phone up from where it rested between the seats and started scrolling through the playlist, selecting a song just as the lights changed and he needed to start moving again.

‘Really?’ I asked as the opening line of ‘White Christmas’, the song that won us the quiz, wafted through the car. ‘This is what you like?’

Henry said nothing, but as he gripped the steering wheel in the exact ten-to-two position, I could see the hint of a smile twitching at his lips.

‘I need to talk to Jed,’ I announced about half an hour later. I’d been trying to focus on preparing for my interview, which so far had consisted of eating two banana oat bars while wittering about whether we could make it to Scotland on time. However, it was impossible to concentrate on my ideas for how to take weather presenting into the digital age when the bombshell about Charis House was still rattling about in my head.

Henry must have pressed something, because the music faded to a faint background murmur.

‘How bad is it really?’ I asked, once Jed had answered his phone.

There was a slight pause. ‘Remember Dad’s patchwork dungarees?’

‘How could I forget?’

One of our students had produced the most horrific outfit in their fashion design class, which Dad then insisted on wearing almost constantly as a means of encouragement until it mercifully fell to bits due to the poor construction.

‘It’s that bad.’

‘And there are really no other options?’

His reply was thrumming with frustration. ‘If there were, don’t you think we’d have come up with them by now?’

‘I can’t believe it.’ I had to force the words past the lump of dismay clogging up my throat.

‘We knew we couldn’t rely on Nana Joy’s contacts forever. She’s barely left the house in the past few years.’