‘Harry and Seb?’

‘My twin brothers,’ Tilly told him without enthusiasm. ‘This whole thing was their idea. They found out about the programme and took it upon themselves to enter me on my behalf. They sent in a photo and some spurious account of why I was so keen to take part-and then made sure everybody knew that I’d got through to the first round before I did so they were all lined up to lay on the emotional blackmail when Seb and Harry finally broke the news.

‘At least, they didn’t mean it as emotional blackmail,’ she amended, wanting to be fair. ‘Everyone at the hospice thought I wanted to take part and had just kept quiet in case I wasn’t picked. So of course when my brothers told them that I was going to be on the programme, they were all delighted for me and kept telling me how proud Mum would have been if she knew what I was doing, which she would have been, of course.’

Tilly sighed. ‘I couldn’t disappoint them by telling them it was all a mistake, could I? It would have felt like letting Mum down, too.’

Campbell frowned as he headed across the hillside, cutting down from the track so that they had to leap between clumps of heather. At least, Tilly did. Campbell just carried on walking as if he were on a pavement. Tilly had never met anyone as surefooted. There was a kind of dangerous grace about the way he moved, and it made her feel even more of a lumbering walrus than she did normally.

He was obviously incredibly fit, too. Look at him-he wasn’t even out of breath, thought Tilly, aggrieved, while she was puffing and panting and tripping over heather and generally making it obvious that she was extremely unfit.

‘Why were your brothers so keen to get you on the programme?’

‘They’ve got this bee in their bonnet that I’m in a rut,’ puffed Tilly, struggling to keep up with him. ‘I was thirty earlier this year and you’d think I was about to cash in my pension the way they’re carrying on about my missed opportunities!’