‘Infidelity? You’re right, that is dreary,’ Clement drawled, not batting an eyelid. ‘Which one of them was being accused of it?’

‘Oh he was, definitely,’ the artist said, gurgling with laughter around the glass, which had been pressed to her lips. ‘I heard the name Vicky mentioned, I believe. And he wasn’t happy about it, I can assure you. Millie’s charmer wanted nothing more than to get her out of there before she could spill the beans good and proper. Kept hissing at her that they’d discuss things tomorrow.’

‘What things?’

‘Alas, that I can’t tell you,’ she apologised vaguely. ‘They didn’t actually say. That is, our gate-crasher intimated, hinted, suggested and downright threatened, but never actually came out with specifics.’

‘But Terry Parker understood the threat?’

‘I’d say so!’ the artist said with another delighted gurgle. ‘If I hadn’t already been three sheets to the wind, I’d have been more appreciative. The last thing I’d have expected at a Millie Vander party would be actual entertainment! So, what’s next? You promised me – what was it … tragedy or death and something-or-other? We’ve done the gossip and the mystery, so let’s get on to the tragedy,’ she said with relish.

Clement reached forward and picked up the Oxford Tribune. ‘Read the papers lately?’

‘Hah! Not I!’ Katherine snorted. ‘I go straight to the “funnies” then the crossword. So-called news is hardly ever that, is it – news, I mean?’

‘Ah, then you missed the death bit. Millie’s charmer, to be precise.’

For a second Katherine Morton went very still and then she tossed off her drink and said flatly, ‘So he died?’

‘You don’t sound surprised,’ Clement said quietly.

The artist shrugged. ‘Dying isn’t really so surprising, is it? People do it all the time,’ she stated dully. The sparkle had definitely gone now, and it seemed to Clement that she reached forward and lit yet another cigarette more out of habit than anything else.

‘We found his body in his crashed car early on New Year’s Day,’ Clement informed her. ‘We believe he died shortly after leaving Millie’s house that night. Or early morning, I should say.’

Trudy, watching her, saw the artist turn her head and stare at the sideboard. Was she going to pour herself another large whisky? How much did the woman drink during the day? But perhaps she was doing the older woman a disservice, for the artist made no effort to rise.

‘Poor old Millie,’ Katherine Morton said quietly instead. ‘To have your grand affair, your gloriously defiant pie-in-life’s-face moment end before it had even properly begun … What a damned shame. The woman will probably never work up the courage to actually “live” again.’

She sighed heavily.