‘I’d love to know who’s on it,’ said Elspeth, smiling.

‘Wouldn’t we all,’ agreed Matthew. ‘I’ve heard about one or two people who are said to be on it. I thought it was a bit unfair. I knew one of them, by the way.’

‘Oh? Who?’

Matthew told her, and then gave her the details. Elspeth listened with an increasingly incredulous expression. ‘Really?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you can see their point of view,’ she said.

‘But anyway, Ann Street is not on my list. So we need to look elsewhere.’

Suddenly she remembered. ‘Moray Place!’ she exclaimed. ‘That was where it was.’

‘Where what was?’

‘The For Sale sign that I saw. I was trying to remember where it was. It was Moray Place – on the northern side – you know, the bit that looks down over the Water of Leith and those gardens. That side.’

Matthew looked doubtful. ‘That’s not going far. In fact, it’s just round the corner. I thought that we might make a slightly bigger move than that.’

‘But why move far away just for the sake of it? We’re not trying to get away from anything, are we?’

Matthew shook his head. ‘Of course not. I just imagined that a move would take us a little further afield than that.’

‘You could still walk to work,’ Elspeth pointed out. ‘And there are those wonderful gardens.’

‘True … true. But then there are …’

Elspeth looked at him quizzically. ‘You mean the nudists?’

‘Yes. You do know, don’t you, that half the committee of the Scottish Federation of Nudists lives there? Or so I’m told.’

Elspeth nodded. It was an open secret, although one would not have thought that of one of the very grandest addresses in Edinburgh. And yet one could see the attraction of Moray Place, with its gardens that were well protected from snell winds from the north.

‘I don’t think it really matters,’ she said. ‘Nudists are generally fine. I had an aunt who was a nudist. Nobody talked about it, of course – they just said that Aunt Dot was off on one of her little holidays again. As children we had no idea – and couldn’t understand why we were never shown her holiday photos. “Not quite suitable for those of tender years,” she said.’

Of course, that answer merely served to whet the appetite, and she and her brother had, while staying with their aunt, crept into the room where she kept her photograph albums and taken the relevant volume off the shelf.

‘No!’ exclaimed her brother, as they opened the album. ‘Look at that!’

Elspeth glanced at the photographs. ‘That’s the airline’s fault,’ she said knowingly. ‘They must have lost their suitcases for them, with all their clothes. It happens all the time, especially with …’ And here, with all the innocence – and perspicacity – of youth, she named an airline.

45. In Moray Place