And they had all reassured one another that, no, they were not going mad, yes, they were allowed to feel the way they did and, yes, they were very much appreciated by the other two people in the car. Therapy had nothing on it.

So, despite the skyscrapers and shopping malls, and despite Poppy’s obvious anxiety about Damian, they had had a pretty good few days. Lars had an apparently inexhaustible supply of road-trip songs on his iPod, which they had played over and over, singing along at the tops of their voices. They had gossiped (‘Honestly, Belles, you won’t believe the change in Ben,’ was a recurrent theme), bitched, and laughed till they cried at Poppy’s impersonations of some of the characters they’d met en route.

And one of their stopovers had been hilarious. Bella smiled to herself again as she recalled Indianapolis.

‘This is where it says he was two nights ago,’ said Lars, looking at his iPhone, as they walked into the bar at nearly six in the afternoon. It was, at such an early hour, almost empty, but still, unmistakeably, a …

‘… a gay bar?’ Poppy’s eyes were wide and horrified. ‘OK, I know he’s been a bit pissed off with me recently, but I haven’t put him off women completely, have I?’

‘Oh, no, Pops, don’t worry, Damian’s just open-minded about stuff, that’s all,’ said Bella, trying to reassure her, though the same thought had crossed her mind. ‘We go to gay bars all the time in London.’

‘Yeah, I know. But we go together, or with our gay mates. It looks as if he came in here on his own. He wasn’t trying to pick up men, was he? Was he?’

Poppy looked as if she was about to cry.

Lars started to laugh, and pointed at a poster on the bare brick wall, advertising all the events that week. ‘No, Poppy, I don’t think he was. Check out Wednesday.’ Today was Friday.

They all looked at the poster, and saw written, in flamboyant pink and mauve lettering: WEDNESDAY – KARAOKE NIGHT!

‘I’m sorry,’ chuckled Lars. ‘I think I gave him the taste for it.’

‘Well, at least you didn’t give him the taste for gay sex … I hope.’ Poppy giggled, relieved.

An enormously fat black man, wearing a woman’s business suit, heavy eye make-up, reddish-brown lipstick, a shoulder-length auburn wig and glasses that reminded Bella of Andy’s, though with slightly narrower rims, came over to their table.

‘Hey!’

‘Hey!’ they chorused back.

‘You not from round here?’

‘No, we’re from England,’ said Bella. ‘Well, at least I am, but Lars is from Sweden, and Poppy lives—’

‘Oh, just shut up, Belles,’ said Poppy impatiently. ‘We’re trying to find my husband, and we think he might have been here a couple of nights ago.’

She took the photo out of her wallet, and the bizarrely dressed tranny started to laugh.

‘Oh, the handsome English dude. Yeah, yeah, he was cool. Difficult to take the mike away from him. He sang—’