I had never known anyone who had a passport. There was not much call for such things in Haverth. The wind was blowing my fur against my cheek and disarraying my hair. “Aidan, slow down, I’m getting out of breath. Do you mean you get a passport from the post office?”

“No, you get a form and fill it in,” he explained, shortening his strides. “Then some other people need to write things on it and sign it, and then it’s sent to the Passport Office. Since you’re under twenty-one, one of those people will be your father.”

“My father! But how can we explain to him why I’m going to Italy?”

“Don’t worry,” he said airily. “It’s perfectly natural that you might have to go abroad to film some scenes. You haven’t told your parents it’s all finished, have you?”

“I don’t think so. I can’t remember.”

“Well, no matter. If you have, we can always say ‘something came up’, which is what people always say when they don’t wish to explain.”

I considered this. “But that would be lying, Aidan. To my family.”

“Oh, not really. A bit of constructive vagueness can be useful sometimes.”

It did not take long to get a passport-application form and establish a poste restante address.

“Miss Clara Hope, Post Office Box 3353, Trafalgar Square, London WC2,” I read from the paper the assistant gave me. “Sounds very grand.”

“It isn’t,” said Aidan, ushering me towards a table. “People have been using poste restante addresses at hotels and post offices all over the world for centuries, to hide their whereabouts, or their identities, or their infidelities, or their criminal activities…”

“Romantic, then,” I suggested.

“Quite.”

We sat down and I began to fill in the form. “Sarah Harriet Freebody,” Aidan read over my shoulder. “Your real name is much nicer than mine. Who would wish to be called Allan Turbin? I used to be nicknamed ‘Dick’ at school, as it’s so like Turpin.”

“I hate Harriet,” I told him. “It’s my granny’s name on my mother’s side. She’s always called Hetty, which isn’t quite so bad.”

“And Sarah?”

“Mam’s name.” I concentrated on writing, trying not to think about Mam. “I much prefer Clara.”

“So do I,” he said, with enthusiasm. “Though I’ll have to get used to calling you Cousin Sarah when we’re in Italy, won’t I?”

I smiled. “So shall I call you Cousin Allan, then?’”

“You’d better not!”

When I had completed as much of the form as I could, Aidan bought a sheet of writing paper and an envelope, wrote a letter to my father asking him to ensure the rest of the form was completed as soon as possible, put everything in the envelope and sealed it. “I’ll send this registered post,” he assured me, “so if it gets lost we’ll know. And if it doesn’t get lost, you’ll soon be the owner of a little navy blue booklet with a number stamped on it and the Royal Coat of Arms. A British passport opens doors across the globe, you know.”

I did not need to open doors across the globe; all I needed to do was travel to Italy under my real name. “How long will it take?” I asked. “To get the passport?”

“A couple of weeks. And you need photographs too.” He scrutinized me sideways. “If I were you I wouldn’t wear all that slap. And put up your hair. The less like Clara Hope you look, the better.”