Maxie had done the proposing. Hazel immediately said yes. Maxie burst into tears, in happiness and relief. They’d opened the champagne Maxie had secretly hidden in the fridge, and toasted each other. Then Hazel had got to work, taking out her laptop and beginning to research venues. It was only six weeks until she was leaving for New York. Was there time before she left?

It was Maxie who jokingly suggested running away to Gretna Green. A colleague had done it the previous year. It had sounded like great fun. Simple, quick, no fuss. Like an old-fashioned elopement. She and Hazel had sat in front of the laptop sipping champagne, scrolling through the various Gretna Green wedding websites, getting more amused as they read about ceremonies held in an old blacksmith’s cottage, the striking of an anvil marking the marriage. They wouldn’t even need to tell anyone. The staff at the cottage could apparently step in as the two witnesses required.

They decided that night. Sent off an email to an agency there to organise it, under Hazel’s name to keep it as private as possible. Maxie assured Hazel that of course she was happy for their wedding to be secret, that she was happy to have two strangers as witnesses. Even if secretly she’d love to throw an enormous party, inviting her family from Australia and all of Hazel’s family from Wales.

Then Olivia had visited her in London. They’d gone to dinner. After too many cocktails, Maxie blurted out the whole story. Had she actually asked Olivia to join them at Gretna Green or had Olivia invited herself? Maxie couldn’t remember. All she knew for sure was that by the end of the night, Olivia was coming to their wedding and had declared she was going to convince Eliza to come too.

She’d done it, of course. Olivia was a great convincer. Miraculously, incredibly, Eliza was in the air right now, en route to Edinburgh. She’d have just a day or so to get over her jetlag before she and Olivia would drive down to Gretna Green to ‘surprise’ her.

Maxie already knew she’d burst into tears as soon as she saw Eliza. Since she’d turned fifty, three years earlier, she’d found herself crying easily and regularly. Perhaps it was just as well she was stepping back from her role as the tough crime gang leader. God knows how she would react the moment the celebrant declared her and Hazel married.

She really should start packing for Gretna Green, she knew. All she’d done so far was carefully put their two wedding dresses into protective covers. They were hanging on the back of their bedroom door. She also needed to pack for their honeymoon. A TV producer friend had loaned them his cottage in the Highlands for a week. It was in the wildest of locations, perfect for the hill-walking and relaxing they had planned. She also needed to pack up this flat.

They would miss living here. It was small but in such a wonderful location, in exclusive Mayfair, a street back from Park Lane, across from Hyde Park. It had been left to a theatrical trust fifty years earlier by a wealthy producer, who’d decreed that it always be rented cheaply for two-year periods to up-and-coming technicians. Hazel’s turn had come eighteen months ago, after years on the waiting list. Maxie had joined her. A rising star in costume design was moving in the day after they moved out.