‘Such a shame, isn’t it?’ said Rose, ‘but at least we’ve recorded it this year. We couldn’t last year because we had one child we couldn’t film or photograph. It was a shame, but we couldn’t risk catching him in shot.’

‘Couldn’t you have edited him out?’

‘Possibly, but we decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Come down to the staff room when you’re done. We’re having mince pies to celebrate the afternoon’s success.’

‘All right,’ I said, my attention returning to an abandoned shepherd’s outfit as I spotted Beamish loitering in the corridor.

‘How’s it looking in here?’ he asked, once Rose had gone.

‘Not too bad,’ I said, looking around. ‘You won’t bother cleaning tonight, will you? It’s the party on Friday so it hardly seems worth it.’

I knew he was rushed off his feet as the two cleaners who usually took care of the vacuuming had both called in sick and he was having to pick up the slack. The poor chap. He really did have his hands full in the run-up to Christmas.

Best not to start thinking about his hands again . . .

‘I’ll vacuum reception and the main corridor, but that’s it,’ he said, coming further into the room and closing the door. ‘Hattie, look I know you’ve been avoiding me today.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ I lied, moving to the other side of the room. ‘I’ve just been busy. As have you, along with everyone else for that matter.’

‘Well, whatever,’ he cut in, ‘but I need to talk to you about last night.’

Oh god.

‘Did you fix that tap?’

‘Bugger the tap,’ he muttered. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

I fiddled about with the shepherd’s head gear and pursed my lips. He was obviously well aware that I had been on the verge of kissing him, but given my new-found gift of making situations a hundred times worse since I’d arrived in Wynbridge, I decided to hear what he had to say about it all before I added my two pennies’ worth.

‘You were going to kiss me, weren’t you?’ He blurted out.

Damn. I bent down to ostensibly retrieve a coat hanger but really, I was buying time.

‘And had you not been about to fly off to the other side of the world, Hattie,’ he carried on, ‘I would have definitely kissed you back, but—’

I didn’t need to hear that.

‘Beamish,’ I said, a little louder than I meant to. ‘I don’t know what made you think I was going to kiss you, but I definitely wasn’t.’

‘But you leant in.’

‘Because you had paint on your face and you needed to get it off before it dried.’

He ran a hand distractedly through his hair.

‘You really weren’t leaning in for a kiss?’