‘Oh great! Nice to meet a fan. We’re appearing at this festival. Johnny got me in. Something a bit different for the punters. And I said I’d help out too if they needed me.’

‘Maybe you could do something in the literary bit as well. You know, someone – an actor – reading a bit of a book and your band singing an appropriate song.’ Then Laura remembered she wasn’t going to have anything to do with the festival and therefore shouldn’t have ideas. Although she had to admit she was beginning to feel getting involved might not be such an impossible thought after all.

‘Great!’ said Monica. ‘That sounds cool! Something like Philip Marlowe would be fab! We could do a really sleazy, smoky number to go with it. We could have fake smoke to get the nightclub atmosphere.’

It did sound rather good, but as they had reached the ground floor and the stairs to the kitchen were too narrow to chat on, Laura didn’t feel obliged to explain she wasn’t the one to talk to about it.

Fenella, or someone, had put on a wonderful old-fashioned spread, in the best traditions of cricket clubs, the WI – in fact, anywhere where sandwiches and cake might be comforting. There was an urn providing tea and a big jug of coffee.

‘This is amazing!’ said Laura when she found herself next to Fenella. ‘I thought I might get a stale Rich Tea if I was lucky.’

‘When I’ve got lots of people coming, I like to barricade myself in with food. I didn’t make all this, though, only a few of the cakes. The dogs will eat anything that’s left over. I’ve shut them all away, because of the meeting.’

Johnny spoke with his mouth full, holding a laden plate. ‘If I have my way, the dogs won’t get anything. If you weren’t married already—’

‘I wouldn’t marry you, but thank you for the offer,’ said Fenella, laughing.

Tricia Montgomery joined the little group that was forming next to the Aga, away from the table. ‘Eleanora tells me you’ve read everything, and that you put on a fantastic reading for Damien,’ she said to Laura. ‘I wonder if he would come? He likes literary festivals.’

‘That would be brilliant,’ said Fenella, scribbling on a napkin. ‘What’s his surname?’

‘Stubbs,’ supplied Tricia. ‘But Eleanora was really impressed with you, Laura. She said she’d never met anyone so well read, so young.’

‘Oh well . . .’

Her self-deprecation was ignored. ‘It’s not often someone who works in a bookshop has such a wide knowledge of contemporary literature,’ went on Tricia, to Laura’s huge embarrassment.