Adam spoke up. ‘I’ve got ID if it helps, here.’ He reached forward to show the man his driving licence but the worker shook his head.

‘Sorry, I can’t accept that because you could be buying it for her,’ he replied, nodding towards Jessica, his face utterly serious.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Jessica said. ‘Seriously, how old are you? Thirteen? Fourteen?’

‘Ma’am, I . . .’

‘Stop calling me that. Can I speak to your manager?’ Jessica could see someone else in line behind them listening to the conversation.

‘I’m sorry, the manager is currently busy. You could wait but it might be a while. He’ll only tell you what I already have anyway.’

Jessica was weighing up the best way to tell the man exactly what she thought of him before Adam interrupted. ‘It’s okay, we’ll just take the food.’

Despite stopping at an off-licence close to her house, Jessica was still angry when she arrived home, much to Adam and Caroline’s amusement. ‘You should take it as a compliment,’ Caroline said but Jessica was having none of it.

Desperate not to completely mess things up, Jessica got up early the next morning and made a list of everything she had to do. Caroline had given her a cook book as a birthday present, no doubt wanting to give her a nudge in the right direction. She hadn’t thought she would ever use it but now it would come in handy. She wrote down everything she was going to make, noted how long everything should take, then worked backwards so she knew what she would have to cook first. Essentially, everyone was right when they said she didn’t cook but she figured that was largely because she had never tried. As she read the method for making Yorkshire pudding, she thought it couldn’t be that hard.

That afternoon, Adam and Caroline rearranged the living room as Jessica continued to refuse any offers of help. Despite an accident opening one of the bags of flour which resulted in one of the walls ending up with a fairly heavy dusting, Jessica thought she was doing a fairly good job – particularly judging by the smells coming from the cooker.

Hugo was the first person to arrive. Caroline answered the door and Jessica heard her welcoming him in. She hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, since her friend had moved in. His real name was Francis and he was a part-time magician, although he didn’t seem to do anything else the rest of his time. He had helped her through a bad spell emotionally and always cheered her up when they met. He was an old university friend of Dave.

Jessica was at the oven when the door opened and Hugo stepped in. She glanced towards him, quickly doing a double-take. He was wearing a full suit with canvas trainers that didn’t match and, most bizarrely, a top hat. Despite the smartness of the suit, he still made it look scruffy. ‘What are you wearing?’ she asked.

Hugo shrugged dismissively as she had seen him do so many times before. ‘Dunno. I thought it best to dress up.’

‘What’s with the hat?’

Hugo took it off, twirling it impressively in his hand before putting it back on his head and shrugging again. ‘I’ve been trying a new look for the act.’ His long dark hair had grown a little since the last time Jessica had seen him and was now below his shoulders. He had tied it back into a half-ponytail, so some of it was still loose.

‘You’re so weird,’ Jessica said affectionately, stepping away to give him a hug. ‘Is this all part of some big trick you’ve got planned?’ she asked, nodding towards the hat.

When it was just the two of them, he acted relatively normally but whenever there were a few more people around, Hugo would pull off some sort of illusion. He shrugged again, although that seemed to be his standard response to most things.

‘Do you want some help?’ he asked.

‘Did they tell you to ask that?’

‘Who?’

‘Adam and Caroline?’

‘No, you just look . . .’

‘Right, you can go join them in the living room. Out.’ Jessica shooed her friend away and closed the door again, checking the clock above it to see how long she had left. It was a few minutes to three and she was aiming to have everything ready for half past. As she put a tray of Yorkshire puddings she hoped would rise into the oven, the doorbell rang again and she heard Dave’s and Chloe’s voices from the hallway.

The constable was also in a suit and Chloe had a short black dress on. ‘Why has everyone dressed up?’ Jessica asked in annoyance.

‘I thought it was some official sit-down dinner thing and thought I’d make an effort,’ Rowlands protested. ‘If I’d known you were going to be slumming around in trackie bottoms, I wouldn’t have bothered.’

Jessica looked down at the trousers she was wearing and realised the flour that had exploded had stuck to the cooking oil she’d dripped on herself earlier and created a crusty mess. She knew she was going to have to change.

Ignoring Dave, she turned to Chloe. The woman had short blonde hair with an incredibly toned physique that made Jessica think the woman probably could kick her arse if she so desired. Chloe was smiling awkwardly. ‘Are you okay, Chloe?’ Jessica asked.

‘Fine, thanks.’

‘What about me?’ Rowlands asked.

‘You’re always fine. Now sod off and leave me alone.’

‘Burnt anything yet?’

‘Only your food, pea-boy.’

Chloe laughed. ‘I keep telling him it’s weird not to like peas.’ Dave quickly shuffled his girlfriend out of the kitchen, perhaps suspecting the women were going to gang up on him.

When it was time to dish up the food, Jessica called Caroline in to help her get everything onto the plates while she went to her room and quickly changed. She thought about putting on the pair of jeans she always wore at the weekend but, given all three men were wearing suits, while Chloe had a short dress on and Caroline had made something of an effort too, she opted to go with the flow. Jessica opened her wardrobe and shunted ninety per cent of the items to one side before picking a blue dress from a hanger. She hadn’t worn it for as long as she could remember. The hem came to just above her knee and it was the shortest piece of clothing she could remember wearing since the days when Caroline was a university student and they used to go out together. She was pleased it still fitted and untied her hair before dashing bare-footed back to the kitchen.

‘Wow,’ Caroline said as Jessica entered.

‘Yeah, sod off, it’s just a dress.’

‘All right, aren’t you touchy?’ Caroline was clearly teasing. She was wearing a similar dress in red but had put an apron over the top of it while she scooped the food onto the plates. ‘You’ve done a good job with this here,’ she added. ‘Potatoes a little burnt but all good apart from that.’

‘I like them burnt.’

‘Fair enough. They’re ready to go through.’

Jessica carried the first plate into the living room. The table was set up with some placemats Caroline had found and she had also bought Christmas crackers. The chairs were a mixture of ones that folded and the regular ones from in the kitchen. Because of that, everyone was at slightly different heights. As she came into the room, Jessica saw Adam smiling at her but Rowlands exhaled loudly. ‘Holy shit, you look like a girl.’

Jessica put the plate down in front of him, then slapped him on the back of the head before leaving and returning with another plate which she gave to Hugo.

When they were all sitting at the table with a plate in front of them, there was an uneasy silence with everyone waiting for someone else to start. ‘It looks good,’ Dave said.

Jessica picked up her fork and thrust it into one of the potatoes. ‘Fine, I’ll go first,’ she said, stuffing the entire thing into her mouth. Once it was clear she wasn’t going to collapse, the rest of her guests began to eat too. ‘You could have started,’ Jessica whispered to Adam.