“Ha!” Dan was obviously trying to follow Angela’s jolly lead, but he was looking slightly manic, punching his fist into his palm. “I remember. It was shaped like a key. I stuck it on the fridge when I got home from the pub. Didn’t even think…about it. Good idea, magnets. Yep. Get your name in front of people. Well. You owe me, Gemma!”

Lyn wanted to smack him.

“Not as much as I owe you,” said Charlie, jiggling Maddie in one arm and putting his free arm around Gemma. He gave Dan a thoughtful, appraising look and then turned back to Nana Kettle. “Gemma is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Nana Kettle beamed up at him, her eyes shining though her glasses. “What a lovely young fellow! Isn’t he, Frank? Maxine?”

Maxine straightened up from the floor with the dustpan full of broken glass. “Very lovely,” she said. Her eyebrows were question marks. “You certainly saved Maddie’s feet from getting cut to pieces.”

“Good reflexes,” contributed Michael overheartily.

There was a contemptuous “pfffff” sound from Kara’s direction.

“Well. We’d better make a move.” Charlie handed Maddie over to Lyn. “It was great to meet you all.”

“Bye everybody,” said Angela. For a moment her flawless performance seemed to falter. “Bye, Dan.”

“Yeah.” Dan examined his hands. “Yeah. Bye then.”

“I’ll see them out,” said Gemma.

There was a moment’s silence in the kitchen. The central characters had left the stage, leaving the supporting cast without a script.

“What was that all about?” asked Maxine, shaking glass into the rubbish bin. “You were all behaving like lunatics. And have you noticed your daughter is drinking like a fish, Michael?”

Michael looked with confusion at Maddie.

“I think she means me, Dad,” Kara raised her wineglass cheerily. “Remember. You’ve got two daughters.”

“Dan, shouldn’t you be finding out what’s wrong with Cat?” Maxine commanded.

“Yeah.” Dan seemed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. He opened the fridge door and stood staring at its contents. “I’ll just take her up a beer.”

“What?”

“Oh. Yeah. I’ll just take one for me then.”

He ambled from the kitchen, nearly colliding with Gemma, who looked up at him with something approaching hatred.

“Can I talk to you for a sec, Lyn?” she said in a strained tone. “Now?”

Lyn leaned up against the desk in her office. “Well. That was fun.”

“I feel terrible.” Gemma slumped into a chair and sat on her hands.

“It’s not your fault. It’s just bad luck. Although, of course, if you could have found a locksmith for yourself instead of calling Cat—”

If you weren’t always so bloody helpless.

“Yes, I know. This is terrible.”

“Yes.”

“Charlie was talking the other night about his sister. He said she’s been seeing—no, he said she’s involved with a married man. That doesn’t sound like a one-off.”

“Maybe it’s another married man. Maybe she makes a habit of it.”

“She called him Danny.” Gemma shuddered.

Lyn picked up her container of paper clips and rattled it, hard. “Why would he tell Cat about Angela in the first place if he was going to keep seeing her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I could kill him.”

“I know. When I saw him coming out of the kitchen then, I thought, I could punch you, I could close my fist and punch you properly.”

Lyn looked down at her in-tray. There was a yellow Post-it note with a frantic message from her marketing coordinator—Lyn! Problem! Please look at before Christmas! She hadn’t even seen it until now. Her stomach clenched instinctively.

“Lyn?” Gemma looked up at her trustingly and swiveled her chair back and forth. “What will we do? Do we tell her?”

Lyn twisted her head from side to side. I am suffering from stress, she thought. I am suffering from profound stress.

The thought made her feel better for some reason.

“What do you think we should do?”

Delegate, Michael was always saying. You’ve got to learn to delegate.

“I don’t know.”

This was why delegating didn’t work.

Lyn said, “I think we should worry about it after Christmas. You can find out more from Charlie.”

“O.K.”

“What’s going on in here?” Cat came into the study, flinging back the door and coming to lean against the desk next to Lyn. She took the jar of paper clips out of Lyn’s hand and rattled it aggressively. The strands of hair around her face were damp. She must have washed her face, scrubbing away all the radiant happiness of that morning. The skin under her eyes looked sad and raw.

“Are you O.K.?” asked Gemma.

“Yes.” Cat took a paper clip and bent and straightened it between her fingers. She didn’t look at Gemma. “You’ll just have to break up with him.”

“Sorry?” Gemma stood up from her chair.

“You’ll break up with him sooner or later anyway.”

“But I like him. I really sort of like him.”

“He’s a locksmith, Gemma.”

“So?”