Harry was still staring at the picture of Frankie onscreen. She looked happy and pretty, as if life had been good to her over the years. As if she’d done just fine without the Mortimers, thank you very much. For all Paula knew, she already had a whole melange of siblings and cousins and other relatives anyway, possibly all high-fliers in London, like her.

‘I would like to see her again,’ Harry replied. ‘And don’t you worry about your mum. I’m going to sort everything out on that front.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Talking of which, I’d better make tracks.’ He handed the iPad back to Paula after one last glance. ‘Thanks, lovey,’ he said. ‘Thanks for finding her. And for being so understanding.’ His eyes were still a bit moist as he smiled fondly at her. ‘A brand-new daughter is all very exciting, but my golly, I’m glad I’ve already got a daughter like you. Aren’t I the lucky one?’

That evening, at around the same time that Harry’s plane touched down, rather bumpily, in Funchal, Alison was making a similarly hopeful, if slightly apprehensive journey of her own, past the golf course and over the River Nidd into Knaresborough. Despite her previous dating disaster, she had decided to give Silver and Single one more chance, just to prove that she wasn’t a quitter; and so here she was now, singing along to Glen Campbell on the radio as she headed towards the car park. Moments later, she reversed into a space and took a last critical check of herself in the rear-view mirror. Was this the face of a woman about to be swept off her feet, about to capture a new man’s heart?

Well, her hair looked good, for starters: shiny and bouncy after a wash and blow-dry, plus some of her favourite finishing spray, which smelled almost as nice as perfume, in Alison’s opinion. Her make-up still appeared dewy and she had bothered to use lip-liner for once, so as to avoid her lipstick bleeding out into the lines around her mouth. Meanwhile her eyelids gleamed with a frosted caramel eyeshadow that really accentuated her hazel eyes. Not bad, in short, even if she said so herself.

And okay, so driving here instead of getting the bus over meant that she wouldn’t be able to drink more than one small glass of wine to keep the nerves at bay, but it also meant that she could escape quickly, if need be. So she was all set. Now she just needed to get out of the car and meet this hunk of burning love that Silver and Single had sent her way. Hopefully there would be cartoon hearts flashing in her eyes within minutes.