Very much like the better-dressed men in Cork might have worn on a Sunday morning. The clothes they’d found in the back room appeared to be perfectly authentic. There’d been another couple of dusty costumes in there. Sal had said something about them being for the other back-up drop-point — another time, another place.

‘Oh, dammit… this’ll have to do,’ tutted Maddy irritably.

‘Can I turn round now?’

‘Yes… but I look a total doof.’

He turned round. His eyes widened.

‘What?’ she gasped suspiciously. ‘What is it? What’ve I got wrong?’

‘Nothing! It’s nothing… it’s just…’

Maddy scowled at him beneath the wide-brimmed sun hat, topped with a plume of white ostrich feathers. Her slim neck was framed by decorative lace that descended down the front of a tightly drawn and intricately embroidered bodice. Her waist seemed impossibly thin, as the gown flared out beneath and tumbled down to the ground, modestly covering any sign of her legs.

She put her hands — covered in spotless elbow-length white gloves — on her hips. ‘Liam?’

He shook his head. ‘You look so… so…’

‘Spit it out!’

‘Like… well, like a lady, so you do.’

For a moment he thought she was going to step forward and punch his arm, like she was prone to do. Instead, her cheeks coloured ever so slightly. ‘Uh… really?’

‘Aye.’ Liam smiled at her. ‘And me? What about me?’

Maddy grinned. ‘Well, you look like an idiot.’

Liam pulled the top hat off his head. ‘Ah, it’s that, isn’t it? Makes me ears stick out like a pair of jug handles.’

She laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it, Liam. Obviously it’s the fashion over here. You won’t be the only person wearing one.’

‘It was mostly flat caps and forage caps back home. You tried wearing a top hat or a bowler, you were asking for some joker to try an’ knock it off.’