Across the UK, normally law-abiding people are harbouring a guilty secret.
They are the Covid holiday quarantine-breakers.
They travelled to holiday spots where the beaches were drenched in sun and where coronavirus infections were starting to surge.
When they came home, they didn't shut themselves away for a fortnight. Instead, they broke the law.
We don't know how many people have been ignoring the self-isolation law after coming back from a Covid-19 hotspot. But rates of infection from people who have recently travelled overseas, have been rising, says the Office for National Statistics. Police figures due on Wednesday will shed more light, providing an insight into fines now being handed out for breaching post-holiday quarantines.
But it's clear lots of people have avoided being caught.
In July, Alice, a 20-something office worker from Surrey, was fed up with not having got away on holiday. For the good of her own mental wellbeing, she says, she broke the rules. Sitting in her garden, she confessed her crime to me.
She'd booked a trip to Majorca with a friend. Then, days before she had been due to fly out, the UK slapped quarantine rules on Spain.
"We were basically told by the holiday company that we wouldn't get our money back. I didn't want to lose another holiday and any money. So just decided to go anyway."
When Alice got to Majorca, she decided the self-isolation she'd face on return to the UK would be a nonsense. The hotel was largely empty and reassuringly clean.
"There wasn't really a time, other than when you were eating, on a sunbed, or in your hotel room that you weren't wearing a mask," she says. "It just felt really safe." Alice believed that the virus transmission rate was very low. She was probably safer in Majorca than England, she thought. In fact, the coronavirus infection rate in Majorca had been climbing rapidly during her stay - meaning her risk of catching it had been growing by the day.
So what happened when Alice returned home?
While her job allowed her to work from home, she wondered about the rest of her life.
"So..." she begins, hesitantly, "I isolated for a couple of days. And then I just thought, you know what, I'm fine."
In the fortnight that followed, the critical period of potential transmission, Alice visited family (although not elderly relatives), went on shopping trips and met up with friends in their homes, or a local park.
"I just thought, if I'm going to catch it anywhere [it will be] in England... people aren't following all the rules all the time."
And you were one of them, I point out.
"Yeah," she replies nervously.
She is not alone. Research organised by the BBC last weekend, suggests a hardcore minority of people were not prepared to obey rules on staying at home if the law required. While only 4% of people polled by Ipsos-Mori said they were "very unlikely" or "certain not" to isolate if they tested positive, that rose to 8% for the under 34s. Asked what they would do if they were told by NHS Track and Trace to self-isolate, because they had been in close contact with someone who had tested positive, the refuseniks across all ages climbed to 8%.
On travel, one in 10 said they wouldn't self-isolate after returning from a hot spot - rising to 16% among the under 34s. Meanwhile, a fifth of people said it was acceptable to break the law to go to work - and a quarter said they'd ignore the post-travel quarantine to care for someone in a different household.
Covid quarantine breakers: 'It was selfish but I don't regret it'
Polling by the BBC suggests a hardcore minority would break the rules - Alice was one of them.
www.bbc.co.uk
