He glances across at the other table. Champagne has been opened. Obviously a celebration is in progress. There’s laughter, a short chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to You’ and a round of applause. Clearly the birthday boy is well known and popular because now several other people have joined in, crossing over to his table and crowding round. Under the cover of the hullabaloo, the younger girl pushes back her chair and comes quickly across to him. Al watches her approach, sitting quite still, his fork loaded with food in his hand.

‘This is going to sound utterly crazy,’ she says, smiling at him, ‘but I just have to ask the question. I saw you here a few weeks ago, didn’t I? Could you by any chance be Al?’

He hardly knows how to answer but he lays down his fork and smiles back at her.

‘Well, actually, yes, I am.’

He wonders if he should ask if she is Amy but she is hurrying on, embarrassed but friendly.

‘It’s just that I know Cosmo, you see, and he told me that he’s had to dash off again but last time he said that his friend Al would be down to look after the house and Reggie. It’s just such a coincidence that I couldn’t resist asking the question.’

‘You’re absolutely right. It’s my parents’ house.’

He hesitates; doesn’t quite know what to say next, how to move forward.

‘So I hope it wasn’t something awful?’ she asks. ‘The crisis, I mean. It was all rather sudden, wasn’t it? Actually we’d invited him to my dad’s birthday party tonight.’

She gestures towards the busy, noisy table, and now Al sees why Cosmo ran away. How difficult to explain to his old mate that he was well in with this girl and her family and friends. Maybe he would have had to ask if Al could join the party. How difficult then, not to talk about their London lives, work, Becks.

‘It looks like you’re having a lot of fun,’ he says awkwardly, avoiding her question. ‘He’ll be sorry he missed it.’

She stares at him, eyebrows raised just a little, as if she’s still waiting for an explanation for Cosmo’s sudden departure, and then she gives a little nod, turns away and goes back to her friends.

Al sits staring at his plate. He guesses that somehow he’s given the game away, dropped Cosmo in it, although he’s said nothing. His sheer inability to explain the situation looks as if he is shielding Cosmo and he is angry to be put into this position. He has no doubt that the girl is Amy, and that she suspects that there’s something going on, and Al wants nothing to do with it. On an impulse he takes out his phone and taps out a message to Cosmo.