Arriving home at seven-thirty, tired but elated, I pricked my finger on a giant holly-and-acorn wreath adorning the front door, and noticed the porch was illuminated by flashing colours. Bridget had clearly gone overboard with Christmas decorations. In the hallway, a garland, threaded with fairy lights, was twined around the banister; tinsel had been draped around picture frames, and Christmas cards dangled from a thread of ribbon on the wall.

‘Wow,’ I said, impressed. I’d campaigned to carry on decorating throughout the house, but Bridget had thought it would look ‘over the top’ so I’d let it drop. ‘Have you been in the attic?’

‘Obviously,’ she said. ‘I remember some of this stuff from when I was a kid, and Romy helped me put up our old stockings – though she’s filled them with her Enchantimals toys.’

‘I’m surprised they’re in a fit state to hold anything,’ I said, ‘never mind those creepy crossbreed dolls.’

Bridget had also spent the day cleaning, judging by the shiny floor, and was leaning on a mop, looking tired but elated – which was odd. I knew she liked cleaning, but not that much.

‘Where is my niece?’

‘Worn out and fast asleep,’ she said. ‘She’s over-excited about Mum and Dad coming home.’

‘Do we have an estimated time of arrival?’

‘Around half ten.’

I threw my jacket off and looked around, the scent of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg carrying me back to childhood. ‘You found Mum’s Christmas candle?’ She’d bought the same one for years, lighting it for an hour or two every day in the lead up to Christmas, so the house always smelt delicious.

‘It’s on the kitchen windowsill, out of harm’s way,’ said Bridget. ‘Now, hang your coat up.’ She smiled. ‘Just kidding.’

I dropped it on the floor.

‘No really, hang it up,’ she said.

In the kitchen, she put the mop away, then took some clean washing out of the dryer and began to fold it. ‘All done at the café?’ Her eyes were sparkling. She’d washed her hair and wound some old-style rollers at the front (Mum’s, obviously) and – in one of Dad’s shirts and a pair of tracksuit bottoms – resembled an eccentric, yet very attractive cleaning lady. ‘It looked great in the photos. Very festive.’

‘All done, thank god.’ I dropped at the table, reliving the utter relief that had washed over me as I left the café and texted Seth THANK YOU!! Whatever happened now, I’d kept my promise, and the room was ready for business. ‘Let me do that.’ I stood up, and plucked Mum’s freshly washed dressing gown from her hands. ‘You’ve done enough today, by the look of things.’

‘Thanks.’ She tuned the radio to a carol concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and the sound of a choirboy piping ‘Oh Come all Ye Faithful’ filled the air.

‘You’re looking forward to tomorrow then?’ I said, as Bridget sank onto a chair, and picked up a half-empty mug of coffee, a smile playing over her face.

‘Hmmm?’ She looked up, her eyes all dreamy. ‘Oh, definitely,’ she said. ‘I might be a bit late to the party though.’

I folded the dressing gown and picked up a little pinafore dress of Romy’s. ‘And you’re definitely not going to let me in on your secret?’ I gave her a winning smile. ‘I’m good at keeping them,’ I said. ‘You’d be amazed to know what else is going to be happening.’

‘Oh?’ Her gaze sharpened. ‘Do tell.’

‘Only if you do.’ I added Romy’s dress to the growing pile and picked up Seth’s jumper, which I’d finally got around to putting in the wash, resisting an urge to press it to my face. It wouldn’t smell of him anyway, now, and Bridget would think I’d lost my mind. ‘Come on, Bee, I’m dying to know what’s got you smiling at least forty-five per cent of the time.’

She plucked a grape from the fruit bowl and lobbed it at me. ‘OK, I’ll tell you,’ she said, as if she hadn’t needed much prodding after all.

‘Go on.’ My curiosity levels shot skyways as I sat down, still clutching Seth’s jumper. ‘It had better be good.’

‘It is.’ She plucked another grape and popped it in her mouth.

‘Bee!’

‘I’m working up to it,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘OK, here goes.’ She dusted her hands and rested them on the table between us. ‘Chad’s coming back.’

‘Chad?’ I stared. ‘Romy’s dad?’

Her eyes danced. ‘I don’t know any other Chads, do you?’

‘But…’

‘He did it, Tilly.’

‘Did what?’ My imagination ran riot. He’s killed someone. Bridget’s going to hide him. He’s a fugitive. Romy’s going to grow up on the run.

‘His invention,’ she said. ‘You remember the plastic handle for cans?’

Switching scenarios, I blinked and nodded. ‘The one Dad refused him investment for?’

Bridget nodded. ‘Not that I blamed him,’ she said. ‘I thought it was a completely ridiculous idea, but…’ Her eyes widened. ‘He’s found a big investor in Chicago.’

‘What?’

‘It’s going to be placed with some major retailers over there, and there’s interest from other countries.’ Her face was growing pinker. ‘He’s going to make a fortune, Tilly, and, even better, they’re interested in some of his other ideas.’

‘Well, he was never short of those.’ Her excitement was catching. ‘That’s amazing, Bee.’

She nodded so hard one of her curlers fell out and rolled across the table. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘None of us had faith in him.’

‘I know.’ She fingered her hair. ‘I feel bad about that.’

‘You shouldn’t,’ I said. ‘He didn’t have the best track record, and anyway it doesn’t matter now.’ I rolled the curler back to her. ‘He said he’d come home when he could make you proud, and he has.’

Her smile flew back. ‘I’ve never stopped loving him,’ she said, with feeling. ‘And Romy will be so excited. I just can’t wait to see her little face—’

‘Hang on.’ I stood up and turned the radio down mid-chorus. ‘Where does this leave Seth?’

‘Seth?’ For a moment, it was as if she’d forgotten who he was.

‘Er, Seth Donovan… the “date of your dreams”,’ I reminded her.

‘Oh, Seth!’ She made a swoony face. ‘Seth’s lovely, I like him a lot, but there wasn’t any chemistry,’ she said. How could there be no chemistry with Seth Donovan? He was a walking chemistry lab. ‘To be honest, seeing him made me realise that Chad’s the only one for me and, even if he hadn’t made it, I was going to ask him to come home and give us another chance.’

‘Right.’ Did Seth know any of this? ‘Have you told him about Chad?’

She shook her head, her freed curl bouncing on her forehead. ‘I got a bit drunk when we went out to dinner…’

‘I can’t say I noticed.’

‘… and was all fan-girly about his career,’ she continued, with a rueful smile. ‘And we had a great time, and have texted each other, but then I got the message from Chad and I’ve been on cloud fifty-nine ever since.’

‘Ah.’ I sat back, slightly deflated. ‘That’s why you’ve been unusually nice to me.’

She paused in the act of removing the rest of her curlers. ‘What?’

‘You were on a “Chad-high”,’ I said. ‘Love is transformative and all that.’ I supposed I should have known it was less about her seeing me differently, and more about the love of her life coming home.

‘Actually, it had nothing to do with it.’ She shook out her hair, which was truly enormous, and bounced around her head. ‘Come with me.’

‘Where?’

She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Come.’

I let her lead me upstairs and into her room where she pulled my old DVD player from under her bed. ‘I got it out of your drawer, like you said.’ She sat on the bed and patted the duvet bedside her. ‘You told me to watch it so I did.’ She opened the player and switched it on, and I sat gingerly beside her, hardly daring to believe it.

‘You saw it all?’

‘I did.’

I looked at the screen, and saw Dad swinging me in the air, like I’d seen him do with Romy. I must have been her age, my hair as dark as Romy’s was fair. Then the scene cut to Mum in her shed with her pottery wheel, re-enacting the scene from Ghost with a giggling Bridget. ‘I’d forgotten that,’ murmured Bridget, her fingers closing over mine. Next up, was Bridget in her first bikini – green-and-white polka dots – showing me how to dive in the water at the lake house where we’d been staying on holiday. I’d been about four – too young to remember much about the trip, apart from the joy of the bracing water, and the way Bridget’s hands had caught mine and pulled me to the side, while Mum cheered her on from the jetty. ‘I taught you to swim.’

Tears threatened. ‘Yes, you did.’

Bridget’s laugh was shaky. ‘Look at Mum.’ The outline of her legs was visible in her cheesecloth skirt, which the sun had turned see through. ‘Look at the cuddles she gives us when we come out, even though we’re dripping wet.’

‘You were never keen,’ I said, smiling as Bridget pulled away from Mum, her long red hair dripping down her back.

‘I was a right moody cow.’

‘You were a teenager, with an annoying kid sister.’

‘We had some nice times, though,’ she said. ‘I’d just forgotten.’

‘Perception’s a bitch.’ I pulled her hand into my lap. ‘Sometimes the bad bits stick.’

‘They weren’t even that bad.’ Her shoulders drooped. ‘I blew things way out of proportion,’ she said, watching the pair of us cartwheel across the screen, in the garden at our old house, Bridget in her faded denim jeans, me showing my daisy-sprigged knickers. ‘So, I had a much younger, cuter sister. It’s not like our parents were druggies and I was forced to take you begging on the streets.’

‘Maybe you could let them know that.’ I gave her a nudge. Her cheeks were shiny with tears. ‘Hey, don’t cry.’

‘Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?’

‘Bee, you’re their daughter.’ I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it. ‘As far as they’re concerned, there’s nothing to forgive.’

‘I suppose if they forgave you for that…’ The scene switched to Meg, Cassie and me belting out an All Saints song in Cassie’s back garden, her brother playing the keyboard, assembled family and neighbours clapping along. ‘What was it you called yourselves?’

‘Legal Mystics,’ I said, grinning at our carefree, fifteen-year-old selves, thinking we were on the cusp of greatness. ‘It’s an anagram of Cass, Meg and Tilly.’

‘That’s right, I remember Mum mentioning it,’ said Bridget. ‘Quite inspired.’

‘That was Cassie.’

‘Obviously.’ Bridget gave me a good-natured shove and we carried on watching, laughing softly when the camera wonkily zoomed in on Mum and Dad smooching in the kitchen to ‘Santa Baby’.

‘I shot that on Christmas Day,’ I said, realising how much I’d missed them. The lens wavered towards seventeen-year-old Bridget, curled in the armchair reading Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. She tutted as she watched her younger self glance up from the pages and stick her tongue out at me.

‘I left home the year after.’

‘Well, you’re here for Christmas this year.’ I pressed the off button. ‘And we couldn’t be happier.’

We jumped as Romy charged in and threw herself on the bed between us. ‘Father Christmas been?’

‘Not yet, cherub.’ I moved to tickle her, as Bridget leaned over to switch on a lamp, her hair bouncing around her face.

‘Come on, pickle, let’s go downstairs and play a game while we wait for Gran and Gramps,’ she said, scooping up her daughter, her eyes soft as they met mine. ‘We’ve a lot to tell them.’

I smiled, feeling sentimental, and more relaxed than I had in ages – even as part of my brain was wondering how Seth would take the news that my sister and her ex were getting back together – and was deciding whether to take a shower, or look for something to eat, when my phone began to ring.

‘Seth?’ It was as if I’d conjured him up.

‘Tilly!’ He sounded frantic, or as though he’d been running. ‘You haven’t seen Jack today, have you?’

‘Jack?’

‘Jack!’ shouted Romy from the doorway, and Bridget’s head snapped up.

‘No I haven’t.’ A cold hand gripped my heart. ‘Why?’

Seth voice fractured as he spoke. ‘He’s missing.’