As usual, it took her a few seconds to realise that the trilling sound coming from her bag belonged to her phone. She presumed it was Estelle. Tess wasn’t in the humour for work talk and allowed the phone to ring out. She would call back later. All she could think of was bed. She craved crisp cold sheets and at least ten hours of uninterrupted sleep.

When the phone rang for a third time, she decided she’d better answer it.

‘Hi, Estelle,’ she said. ‘I’ll—’

‘Uh, howarya, Tess?’ replied a familiar voice. ‘What are you up to?’

‘I’m about to do some pictures. It’s an important …’ She stopped. Conor wouldn’t call unless something was wrong. Shit, she thought, the baby. ‘What’s up?’

‘It’s your mam. You’ve got to talk to her.’

While Belinda hovered, Conor explained that he’d gone home for the night and was taken aback by what he’d found. Tess’s mother was in a bad way. After some probing, his dad revealed that she was upset because Tess wasn’t speaking to her. ‘Ginny’s coming to the conclusion that she’ll have to tell her about her father,’ he said. ‘Not that she’ll find it easy to handle.’

‘Did he say why?’ asked Tess.

‘Ah, here,’ said Conor, his voice stiff with irritation. ‘For once, will you think about your mother? She’s five months pregnant and she looks wrecked. Haunted. And the old man’s not much better. They don’t know I’m ringing you, by the way. I’m in the callbox outside Pilkington’s.’

‘It’s not all my fault, you know.’

‘I’m not saying it is. But, if you want my advice, you should talk to your mam.’

‘That won’t be easy. She doesn’t like phone calls, and, I guarantee you, the moment I ring she’ll be all, “Everything’s grand, Tessy. Don’t you go fretting about me.”’

‘Then you should come home and have a word with her. No, not a word – a proper conversation. She can’t go on like this.’

Tess didn’t leave immediately. Belinda finished her first look, and Rik spent ten minutes taking test shots and whinging about the model’s head being elsewhere. It was when he made a comment about the Irish being unreliable that she snapped.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘I can’t do this today. I’m off.’

‘What do you mean you’re off?’ asked Rik, in his phoney south London drawl (everybody knew he was actually from some chi-chi spot in Surrey).

‘I’m off home – to Ireland. I want to see my unreliable mother and her unreliable husband-to-be.’

Leaving Rik to grumble about ungrateful cows, and the ooh-ers and ah-ers to swap bemused glances, Tess picked up her handbag and denim jacket.

‘Big mistake, lovey,’ said Belinda. ‘Big mistake.’