‘Absolutely.’ Nella was entirely cheerful now. ‘Down the hall, not the stairs to the cinema room or the wine cellar, but the next door. Shall we look at this then, Melissa? Pat from the vicarage had the ama-zing idea of a small circus tent.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I looked round for more wine. ‘Tell me more, hon.’

Ruby

Wouldn’t want to end up in the cinema room, I thought darkly, hurrying down the hall, checking my phone again. It wasn’t Zach texting though but Ali: moaning from Berlin about running out of money – again. Pinging back a terse reply, I hurried on, until something stopped me dead in my tracks.

Somewhere nearby, urgent voices were muttering, their tone fraught with anger.

Unsettled, I glanced into the kitchen. Through the giant glass doors, I could see Rex strolling round the garden like Lord of the Manor, beer in hand, but on this side of the glass, Marcus—

Marcus was looming over someone by the kitchen counter, holding her arm back, his hand clamped around her wrist.

It was the waitress, I realised with a thud in my chest. Her arm was raised as if she was about to strike him.

Before I could speak, he looked up and, without missing a beat, gave me a comic eye-roll, as if to say ‘Staff!’, and dropped her arm in the process.

The young woman, cheeks lit with furious colour, moved away from him quickly.

‘Sorry.’ I felt like it was me that had been caught red-handed. ‘I was just looking for the bathroom.’

‘First left. Dores here was having a bit of a problem with the dishwasher. She took exception to my moaning and took it out on this plate, didn’t you, Dores?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed miserably, staring down at the floor by her feet, covered in jags of china – but looking at her balled fist, still clenched at her side, the prickle of discomfort I felt was savage.

‘So – everything’s OK then?’ My voice sounded too loud in my own ears.

‘Yes.’ They both nodded. The waitress even managed half a smile as she looked up again.

‘He was complaining to me, that is all. So sorry, Mr Jackson.’ She bobbed her head and picked up a stack of side plates. ‘I will be more careful next time.’

‘It’s fine.’ Marcus shrugged and turned back to the garden, flashing a quick smile at me. ‘I can be a bit of a stickler for these things.’

And then he was gone.

Shaken, I found the bathroom, so white and airy my whole family could move in for a week, and carefully locked the door behind me.

Leaning against the limestone basin, my heart beating very fast, I tried to assemble my thoughts.

That this was a house of some subterfuge definitely seemed likely, and why the Jacksons would move their daughter from a school like St Bede’s to Northgate High wasn’t at all clear to me – yet.

My sigh was heavy. I was probably just being melodramatic, I told myself, truly out of my depth in such company. And yet, what was becoming obvious was that, out of place or not, I hadn’t been asked here to arrange the street party at all. No, for some unfathomable reason, Nella wanted a favour from me.