Sasha groaned in frustration at the insistent ringing of the phone, as Kev tried to reach it. But his trousers were around his knees, and Sasha was trying to drag him to the floor, and he stumbled and fell over, pulling her down on top of him. The phone flew across the floor. ‘We had better…’ he said breathlessly.

Sasha tried to carry on, he was under her now, just where she wanted him, and when Kev tried to see where the phone had gone, her hand moved beneath the cotton of his boxers and he immediately responded.

He said, ‘It could be… We have to…’

‘Leave it,’ she hissed, but he turned his body so that she rolled off him and crawled on all fours to the phone, while Sasha lay on the floor and let out a roar of frustration.

‘Angel?’ she heard Kev say, and she remembered that her daughter was home alone, and sat bolt upright.

‘I can’t…’ he said into the phone, and then, ‘Slow down…’

Sasha grabbed it from him. ‘Angel, darling, what’s wrong?’

‘Mum…’

Sasha could barely hear her over the blaring music and shouts in the background. ‘Angel, is that you? I can’t hear you.’

‘Mum.’ Angel’s words were slurred. ‘You’ve got to come home, you’ve got to…’

‘What’s happening, what’s all that noise?’

‘Please come…’ said Angel. ‘I don’t feel—’

The call went dead and when Sasha tried to call back, there was no answer. ‘We’ve got to order a cab, and quick.’

Kev was hopping around like a rabbit, trying to pull up his trousers. ‘I’ll drive, I think I’m okay.’

She threw the crumpled dress into the overnight bag and grabbed a tee-shirt, pulled on a pair of jeans, then ran to the wardrobe and started pulling the dresses out, making the hangers jangle crazily. It was mad that she had brought so much stuff with her. And the faster she moved, the more the champagne slopped around in her empty stomach, the more unwell she felt.

‘We had two bottles of champagne,’ she told him, rushing into the bathroom to throw all her make-up bits and bobs, the compacts and containers, into the toiletry bag. ‘The last thing we need is for you to be banned from driving.’

When she came back into the room, he was looking wistfully at the enormous four-poster. ‘We never got to use that.’

But the passion she had felt only moments ago had gone – replaced by an overwhelming fear for her daughter. She tugged at his sleeve. ‘We have to go, Kev, right now.’

While he called down to reception to order a cab, Sasha dropped to her knees to shove the toiletries into the overnight bag. In typical fashion, all the things that had slipped easily into the bag that morning barely fitted back in now.