“You’re moving in near here?” said Sasha.

“At the weekend. Want me to come and administrate the office? I sometimes pretend to be the actress sister and walk around quoting Shakespeare and posing, but that’s just to lull you into a sense of false security. In my real identity, I’m super-stern and efficient, and very organized.”

“I think just the one Miss Atwater cracking the whip on us seems plenty for right now. But you’re welcome to come in for coffee any time.”

“You know, I might just do that. If I find myself growing so weak with caffeine withdrawal that I can’t make the five-minute walk home. But you’d better enjoy those flapjacks while you can, because there might not be so many of them leaving the house after next Monday.”

“Now, that,” said Sasha approvingly as the door closed on Sophie’s slim legs, “is the sort of sister I like to meet.”

“That is kind of you, Miss Atwater,” said Nikolai. “To cook dinner for her friend.”

“Oh.” Lulu laughed and shook her head, never comfortable with compliments. “I feel sorry for Jamie. He lollops after her like a great big puppy dog, she orders him around most dreadfully, and he takes it because he adores her.”

“Nice kind of boyfriend,” commented Sasha.

“Boyfriend! He wishes. He’s just a friend, although if he could change things, he would in a heartbeat.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?” he asked.

“I’m not sure right now. They tend to come and go.” Sophie was rarely without a boyfriend, but the regularity with which she changed them was such that both Lulu and Emma regarded their sister’s love life with bemusement verging on awe. “Would you like me to put in a word for you?”

She had thought she had spoken lightly, teasing as Sophie seemed so effortlessly able to do. But when she looked up, she saw that she had offended him.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said quietly.

“Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t suggesting … People are always interested in Sophie, you see. Men, I mean. Guys.”

“She’s very attractive,” he said. “But I don’t need help, thanks.”

“Sorry,” said Lulu again, but he had already gone through the door that led to the shop.

“Young men,” said Nikolai, shaking his head after his son. “Do not marry him after all, Miss Atwater. You are far too good for him.”

“There’s something I don’t understand,” said Charlie, later that evening, sitting at the kitchen table and chopping mushrooms while watching as Lulu expertly browned the meat in a large frying pan—Charlie was not a cook herself, but liked to watch her friend cooking. “And that is why, when you’re spending your own money on food for someone else, it’s organic beef and wine and cheesecake fixings, but when it’s my money on food for us, then I have to beg for anything posher than sausages and lentils. Can you explain that to me, please?”

Lulu smiled as she tossed another handful of steak into the sizzling oil of the cast-iron pan, watching it splutter gratifyingly as it turned first golden, then crusty mahogany brown. The flat occupied the upper two floors of a pretty Victorian terraced house on a quiet street near Belsize Park Tube station; it belonged to Charlie’s aunt Maeve, who owned a cooking school just outside Cork and was particular about her kitchen. Having learned to cook on Fee’s cheerfully dilapidated equipment, Lulu still pinched herself a little when she looked at the substantial pots on the six-burner kitchen range, the extensive collection of Le Creuset casseroles that lined the cupboard above, the bank of mixers, blenders, and grinders that stood in the corner of the broad countertop, ready to spring into action at the touch of a switch.