Nell wasn’t prepared for the sight that waited for her. Willow, pale as a shadow, was walking backwards and forwards over the white-painted floorboards while Marigold, for once looking normal and human, anxious even, was holding Naomi in her arms.

‘Nell, thank heavens you’re here,’ Marigold greeted her. ‘I’m sure there’s something not right with her. She was just coughing and wheezing and now she’s been all floppy like this for the last hour. She doesn’t want to eat and she isn’t even crying!’

Nell didn’t think she was the mother of the year herself, but she could see there was something worrying in the way Naomi’s little body drooped in Marigold’s arms.

‘We didn’t worry at first. I thought it was just a cold,’ Willow explained anxiously. ‘There was someone on the plane who kept sneezing right next to us.’

‘Maybe you’ll be able to comfort her.’ Marigold handed the little girl to Nell.

A jolt of overwhelming love laced with maternal terror ran through Nell. This definitely wasn’t right. ‘We need to call the doctor at once. He was very good with Moira. I’ll get his number now.’ She passed the baby over to her daughter.

It seemed an eternity before the phone was answered and the doctor’s wife, Eleni, was on the line. ‘I am afraid he is out on a call, but I will get him to come as soon as he can.’

Knowing he was on his way calmed them all until the little girl erupted into a sudden coughing fit, followed by a worrying wheezing sound. Willow, desperate to do something, went to stand on top of the steps to beckon the doctor in as soon as he arrived.

Fortunately he wasn’t long.

‘Bronchiolitis,’ he said with reassuring certainty after examining her. ‘It is a common lung infection in small children, though more usual in winter. You say you were next to someone on the plane. I see it often but this is more severe, the way she is so limp and unresponding. At her age, she should be in hospital.’

‘Do you have a hospital?’ Nell demanded, trying not to panic.

‘No, I’m afraid she will have to go to Santorini. They have a brand new hospital there. I will arrange everything.’

‘How will we get there?’ Willow asked anxiously.

‘Nikos,’ said the doctor. ‘He has the fastest engine in Kyri.’

Penny and Marigold avoided each other’s eyes. Under different circumstances they might have laughed.

‘I will call him now,’ the doctor announced. ‘He will come at once when he knows it is an emergency. It will be quicker than organizing a helicopter. Sometimes, strangely enough, they take longer to come.’

Nell bit her lip, trying to keep calm, at the word ‘emergency’.