One of the saddest times of my life was the month Tummywumps, my ginger tabby, went missing. I’d left a window open overnight, and while I dozed, she sliced a hole in the screen and stole away like a jewel thief.

I was sitting at the bar of a subpar pub. On the stool next to me sat a glittering heap of rouge and jewels which proved to be a woman of advanced years. She couldn’t’ve been a duchess, not at O’Finnegan’s. But there was something distinctly aristocratic about the way she fingered her pearls.