Nancy awoke to discover she’d been crying in her sleep. In waking life you could be as strong and defiant as you were able, but in dreams . . . that was where you were exposed. She picked herself up and noticed the half-written Christmas letter she’d been composing for Frank.

This was to be her first Christmas without family around her. Frank’s too. The first Christmas with their father gone. And here I am. Miles from Frank. Miles from anywhere. The tinsel in the halls. The glass and paper angels. All of it was so beautiful, but none of it could compare to the decorations she and Frank made together every December.

What she wouldn’t give now to get the ingredients together and make a batch of gingerbread with Frank. They were always his favourite. Mine too. None of the Buckingham’s finest confectioneries could ever compare.

She could not forget the way Raymond had refused to look at her as he stormed out of the hotel, and she knew she never would. What is the Buckingham, anyway, without him in it? What’s a hotel without the people you love? It felt empty.

Nancy reached for a rag and blew her nose, dabbed at her red eyes. He’s gone. He wasn’t the man you thought he was anyway, she told herself. You came here alone. You can do it alone if you have to . . .

Mrs Moffatt, Mrs Whitehead and the rest of the housekeeping crew would give her no quarter if she could not control her emotions. So she dressed quickly and rinsed the tears from her face, ready for breakfast.

After breakfast, Nancy turned out the stores on the first floor, filling the trolleys that the other girls marched off into the hotel interior, and – once she was done – she made haste to the fifth floor, where she was due to join Mrs Whitehead clearing out the Pacific and Continental suites. Mrs Whitehead was already half-finished polishing the brass rails of the bedstead in the Pacific when Nancy arrived.

‘You might turn to the Continental,’ she began, now standing on the tips of her toes to run her feather duster over the French armoire. ‘The Holsteins should have already landed.’

Nancy nodded and, giving a curtsey as she turned, she returned to the hallway.

The Continental was one of the Buckingham’s finest: a long barrel of a suite, with the bedroom at its apex, a half-moon lounge and a second separate study – or dressing chamber, as the occupants directed – off to one side. Consequently, preparing it for new guests often felt a Herculean task. But Nancy didn’t mind. A singular task like this was one you could lose yourself in; hours might whistle by as she took care of its every nook and cranny, distracting her from all that was on her troubled mind.