‘Look,’ Duncan said, glancing over his shoulder at the women, as if he thought Rose-Ann might overhear and shut him up, ‘I got an idea,’ and, like a man with only one shot at the big time, he rapidly pitched a scheme to start a record label, an indie-folk/rock outfit, under which he could gather his rapidly growing collection of brilliant misfit introverts. He wanted Dan on board.

‘An investment opportunity,’ he said. ‘Ten grand should do it.’

‘Do what?’ Dan asked.

‘Get us up and running.’

‘So, five grand apiece, you mean?’

Duncan winced. ‘Och, man, you know how skint I am, and I can’t spend Rose-Ann’s dosh on something like this.’

‘Right. So, ten grand from me, nothing from you.’

‘Nothing but my bottomless talent and energy and remarkable ear,’ Duncan said. ‘And that’s gold bullion, my friend.’

Dan laughed. ‘My ten grand would be wasted,’ he said. ‘Money down the drain. What you could do is cherry-pick from your East Neuk artists, then get them gigs, create a buzz. That’s what you could do.’

‘And you, too.’

‘You don’t need me to do that.’

‘Ahh, but Dan, to start a label …’

‘… would be a one-way ticket to being screwed over by somebody bigger and richer than we are.’

‘OK,’ Duncan said. ‘OK. Let’s do the other thing then.’

Gordon’s daughter Meredith plonked two pints on the bar in front of them, sloshing beer on to the polished wood, then swivelled away to find the red.

‘That’s fifty-pence-worth she just spilled,’ Duncan said.

‘She’s got a face on,’ Dan said. ‘She wants to be somewhere else.’

‘So, shall we do it?’ Duncan said.

Dan shrugged, deeply sceptical, but Duncan said, ‘Good man, good man,’ anyway, as if a deal had been struck. When Meredith approached with two glasses of wine he picked up the pints and said, ‘Get those off of her before she chucks half of it away,’ and he made his way through the packed tables to Katelin and Rose-Ann. Dan followed, and handed over the wine, and the two women took their glasses, clinked them, and Katelin said, ‘To the road trip.’

‘The road trip,’ said Rose-Ann.

‘Eh?’ Duncan said.

‘We’re going on a road trip?’ Dan asked.

‘You’re not,’ Katelin said.

‘But we are,’ said Rose-Ann.

They did this sometimes: an irritating little double-act, finishing each other’s sentences, grinning at private jokes.

‘Very nice,’ Dan said, nodding approval, provokingly and deliberately relaxed.

Duncan, less gifted in the feigning arts, said, ‘What? Where to? Cambridge, you mean? To see Alex?’

‘Men,’ said Rose-Ann to Katelin. ‘They just can’t see the bigger picture.’

‘But hang on,’ Duncan said, ‘whose car will you take?’

‘We’ll hire a car, Duncan,’ said Katelin patiently, and then to Dan she said, ‘Have a guess where we’re going.’

He smiled at her, picked up his pint, took a mouthful, then put it down.