‘Well, they won’t be down there for much longer now,’ said Olivia, and on cue a sorry trail of sodden males burst through the kitchen door, dripping and panting like wet dogs.

‘Oh, you poor things,’ said Olivia, trying not to laugh. ‘You’d better go and get into some dry clothes – do help yourselves to hot showers, if you want. There are fresh towels in both bathrooms. And by the time you’re down again we’ll have got the potatoes on, and then I’ve got a treat for you all.’

‘So what’s the treat?’ Bella asked her mother as they basted the par-boiled potatoes with sizzling goose fat and slid them into the Aga’s pre-heated second chamber. She was expecting homemade Scotch quails’ eggs or some such delicacy.

‘Poppy’s show! It’s not meant to be coming on for another month, but there was a preview last night on a really obscure American channel. I thought it would be a nice surprise for you all.’

‘I watched it, Mum.’

‘Oh.’ Olivia’s shoulders sagged slightly, the wind taken out of her sails. ‘I assumed you and Andy would be out – you know, Saturday night …’

‘Nope, he was working.’ Bella’s voice was slightly bitter. ‘We don’t go out on Saturday nights any more. I stayed in and watched Poppy looking gorgeous in the sunshine instead.’

‘And didn’t she just?’ Olivia beamed. She wasn’t stupid, and could hear the resentment in her daughter’s voice, but wasn’t about to pander to it. ‘I’ve Sky Plus-ed it, but can’t work out how to get it to work today. Bloody remote’s gone missing again. Please help me, darling. I’m sure everybody else would love to see it.’

So Bella was on her hands and knees, unable to work out, herself, how to get Poppy’s show on her mother’s telly, when the men, all dry and fluffy now, reappeared from their ablutions.

‘Oh, I can’t work out how to do it,’ she snapped.

‘What?’ asked Andy.

‘Mum recorded Poppy on Sky Plus last night. I’ve seen it anyway.’

Andy looked at her in bemusement.

‘Really? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You weren’t in the mood to be told about anything so trivial when you got in last night.’

Andy felt guilty. All he had wanted to do the previous night, after yet another evening steeped in the horrors of people trafficking, was collapse into bed with Bella in his arms.

‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, sweetheart. Well, I can’t wait to watch it now.’ He crouched down next to her and started to sort out the buttons on the machine.

‘Poppy’s show?’ said Mark from the armchair in which he’d ensconced himself. ‘Bet it’s a stormer.’ He was slightly pissed by this stage, but very aware of trying not to offend anybody. Not the most sensitive of souls, he honestly thought that praising Poppy might get him back into Bella’s good books.

‘Course it will be,’ said Justin from the sofa. ‘That girl’s a knockout. Your best friend for life, isn’t she, Angel Face?’