‘About an hour. The exhibition hall’s out towards the airport.’ He helped her with the belt and twinkled engagingly. ‘Can’t wait to see our stand. It’s going to be head and shoulders above the rest.’

‘Of course,’ Lily said hollowly, realising that her butterflies hadn’t all been used up on Isaac or Garrick because a whole squadron seemed to have taken off in her belly. It was ages since she’d been involved with a project as intimately as this one.

The amount of snow on the ground decreased as they travelled, Zürich lying six hundred metres lower than Schützenberg. Max had passes to get them through the exhibitors’ entrance and Lily found herself crossing the acres of cheap but new carpet peculiar to trade shows with rising excitement. The set-up crew had been and gone and she could pick out the British Country Foods stand – stand E11-07 – from thirty yards away. ‘Looking OK,’ she said, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘The colours on the clings have come out pretty true.’ Then she was stepping up onto the stand decorated red, white and blue and gazing around at the physical manifestation of her hard work.

Kirstin, Felix and Stephen, smart in their business suits, were preparing for the start of the show the next day, lining up brochures, stowing cool boxes ready for product samples and making up displays of non-perishables according to the schematics Lily had designed in faraway Middledip.

As she usually worked remotely Lily rarely experienced the buzz of seeing her ideas come to life and the morning passed in a blur as she checked displays and video loops. As the stand stood on a corner she’d designed a fold-out backdrop against which the Middletones would sing.

Los showed up for half an hour, studying the stand from all angles with a nod and a smile. ‘This is very good, Lily. Very striking,’ before he vanished off back to his office in Schützenberg.

Finally, Max put his hand on Lily’s shoulder, interrupting her conversation with Felix about social media. ‘Let’s take your photo with the stand and then I have to deliver you for lunch. Your friends will be wondering what’s happened to you.’

Lily left almost reluctantly after the photo, walking backwards up the aisle to take her last look at the stand. ‘It’s surpassed my expectations. And Los seemed to like it. Did you think he did?’

Max patted her shoulder. ‘We’d have heard all about it if he didn’t.’ He listened good-naturedly as she chattered about the show opening tomorrow and the Middletones singing while he drove her to Restaurant Raten, its car park cleared of snow, the surrounding slopes blinding white with snow and edged with stands of pines. The majestic mountain-scape of Central Switzerland rose up in the distance, the snow-capped peaks of the St Gallen Alps under a silver swathe of cloud.