Carola, whose face had been wreathed in smiles ever since she got the phone call from Owen, gave Emily a big hug. ‘I should imagine they’d be a little expensive but we can look.’

‘I’d love one too,’ Lily said, falling into step beside Emily. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in real life but I’m afraid your mum’s right to suspect they’ll be expensive. It’s a famous brand of clock, I think.’

The shop, when they reached it, was elegant. Warwick commented loudly, ‘Swanky or what?’ Tourists were gathering on the marble tiles in front of the wall of cuckoo clocks, each one like a little chalet frozen within a scene. At five minutes to the hour a dapper man in a dark suit stepped up to give a quick talk in English, having established that everybody waiting spoke that language, about Lötscher cuckoo clocks.

He smiled around. ‘Lötscher has been crafting these wonderful clocks since 1920 and is now the only Swiss manufacturer to create the clocks by hand. Every one, with its attention to detail and use of local material such as linden wood, is a work of art.’ He paused for them to assimilate these impressive facts. As he went on to eulogise about clockwork, music boxes and gears, Lily gazed at the beautifully carved clocks in wonder. The figures of people and animals seemed almost real, living daily lives around tiny chalets with shuttered windows.

Emily whispered to her. ‘Which one do you like? I like Santa Claus’s Chalet.’

‘That’s one of the most expensive at over two thousand Swiss francs!’ Lily whispered back. ‘I’d settle for the Brienz Chalet but I can’t spend four hundred on it.’ The little chalet had flowers at every window and balcony. A stack of logs waited as if for someone to take them indoors for the fire. Above the clock face was the cuckoo’s little door. The weights of the winding mechanism were brass fir cones on chains, a pendulum swinging behind.

The man patted the clock that had caught Lily’s eye. ‘This is our classic, based on the very first Lötscher workshop. Some people say it’s the only genuine cuckoo clock.’ He twinkled at Emily. ‘Miss, you have more expensive tastes but Santa Claus’s Chalet features moving platforms for the gifts and the baby deer.’

Then four o’clock arrived and all over the shop little doors popped open and cuckoos bobbed, their ‘Cuck-oo, cuck-oo!’ mixing on the air with clock chimes. The most elaborate clocks continued with moving figures and pretty music-box tunes.

Carola gave Emily a hug. ‘Sorry, sweetie. You’ll either have to find a cheaper mass-produced version or to save up your pocket money for a few years.’