“How much more washing-up is there to do?” said Jack.

“Loads,” said Louis. “As you can see.”

Except it now turned out his name wasn’t Louis. It was Dave. And he didn’t have a French accent any more. He had a very British accent, located somewhere in the middle of the country. He was standing with his arms crossed by the sink, in the back of La Rurale Pastorale’s kitchen. As he spoke, a whole new load of plates, knives, forks, pots and pans were emptied into the very same sink. By Rahul.

“Oh, come on!” said Jack. “We’ve been here for three hours!”

Amy, Janet and Rahul looked at him. Amy was on drying duties; Janet on stacking-up duties; and Rahul, as I’ve basically already told you, was on bringing-new-needing-to-be-washed-up-cutlery-and-crockery-over-to-the-sink duties.

Dave checked his watch. “And I reckon you’ll be here for another two hours. And then maybe you’ll have paid your bill. Just about. You stupid little boy.”

He started to walk off, grabbing a piece of expensive bread from the counter to chew as he went.

“What now, Jack the Lad?” said Amy, flicking him with her tea towel. The restaurant had provided her with a chair, which she was sitting on while she dried the dishes.

“Yeah, what now, Mr Short and Long Con?” said Janet.

“You did really well there, Jack, I must say,” said Rahul.

“Hmm,” said Amy. “You have learnt how to be sarcastic.”

Jack turned wildly away from the sink, towards Dave’s walking-away back.

“I’ll tell everyone the French thing is a big act!” shouted Jack. “I’ll tell everyone … everyone … who follows me on my Instagram page!”

“Yeah,” shouted Dave back. “You do that, Katy Perry.” And he walked out of the kitchen.

By the time they left La Rurale Pastorale – with Dave waving them off, definitely sarcastically (he was holding in his waving hand a very, very clean plate, for a start) – and got back into the Taylor TurboChaser, it was getting dark.

“OK,” said Amy, as they drove away. “I think it’s beans from now on. I don’t care about the smell.”