‘I’d like to speak to Mrs Vander please,’ Phyllis responded amiably, totally ignoring the youngster’s rudeness. She recognised the girl as someone who’d been at the party, and assumed her now to be Millicent Vander’s daughter. She was well aware that Terry’s latest meal ticket was the mother of twins.

She was also a complication that Phyllis could do without right now, and she only hoped she’d be able to get rid of the little madam quickly. She wanted no witnesses to her upcoming chat with Terry’s latest amour, or the negotiations that were sure to follow.

‘Who shall I say is calling?’ Juliet asked, a shade less insolently. Just as Phyllis had remembered her from the party, so too had Juliet placed Phyllis. When she’d asked Jasper at the time who the stranger was, she’d been surprised and amused to discover that he didn’t know. She could usually rely on her twin to make the acquaintance of anyone who looked pretty in a skirt – no matter what her age. And the woman on the doorstep must be approaching thirty, if she was a day.

‘A friend of Terrence Parker’s,’ Phyllis said with another amiable smile, showing no annoyance at Juliet’s flat stare.

‘Mother isn’t seeing anyone,’ Juliet said stiffly, beginning to close the door. For some reason she didn’t like the look of this visitor, and besides, any friend of Parker’s was hardly a friend of theirs.

‘Oh, but she’ll want to see me,’ Phyllis said firmly, her hand shooting out to prevent the closure of the door.

Juliet looked mulish. ‘You were at the party here, on New Year’s Eve,’ she said, her voice accusing.

‘Was I?’ Phyllis asked blandly. ‘Are you a maid? If so, you need to …’ Juliet wasn’t able to let this insult pass, and it totally distracted her, just as Phyllis had hoped it would.

‘No, I’m not the bloody maid!’ Juliet fumed. ‘And like I said, Mother’s not seeing anyone. She’s not well.’ She added the lie as a distinct afterthought.

‘Oh dear. I understand that Terry’s death must have upset her dreadfully,’ Phyllis said blandly. ‘But she really will want to see me, you know,’ she added firmly.

And again, Juliet felt unsettled. There was something about the woman’s tone – something knowing in her voice – that made the hackles rise on her back. She also seemed so confident of herself. No doubt about it, this attractive woman was beginning to make her skin crawl. And why exactly was she so set on talking to her mother? She knew for a fact that her mother didn’t know this woman; she’d said as much at the party. They’d laughed about it in fact, with Jasper assuring their slightly put-out mother that no real party could be considered a success nowadays without at least one gate-crasher.