Helena flirted with the idea of telling him this meeting was all her idea but decided life was complicated enough without lying. ‘Well, actually, I am going to try to talk you round to the idea of Mum and William living in the house together. And William asked me.’

‘The snake! Trying to get you to do his dirty work!’

‘It’s not dirty work! They want to be together; William wants you to be happy about it. That’s perfectly reasonable and he’s not a snake. He really loves Mum.’

‘Mum? Or her very expensive real estate?’

Helena swallowed hard, shocked that he should mention ‘real estate’. After all, he and Cressida had set Gilly up with a man who had tried to persuade her to sell her house. She wondered what kind of kickback they’d offered him? And had they thought through the implications of Leo inviting Gilly to live with him? Bang went their free nanny-cum-gardener! Maybe they’d reckoned his property was so fantastic that Gilly would happily move into it, having sold hers and given them the money, which would at least have got them their new mansion. Although of course Gilly didn’t want to sell and he didn’t actually own his property. Gilly had explained all this to her. They probably hadn’t bargained on him wanting to live in Fairacres when he couldn’t convince her to sell – that scuppered all their plans. And would Martin have been happy for Leo to live in his old family home?

But now wasn’t the time to ask him. She forced down her fury at the way he and Cressida had behaved. She was here as a peacemaker and it wouldn’t help to rake up those things. ‘William has a very nice house of his own. He doesn’t need Mum’s house; he just wants to live with her. And she wants to live with him.’

‘I’m surprised at you, Helena. You’re the sentimental one. Aren’t you bothered about there being another man in Dad’s place? What about respecting the memories?’

‘What memories, Martin?’ asked Helena softly. ‘Were there many good ones?’

‘Of course there were good ones! Christmas! When we were little and all the cousins came to stay. It was brilliant.’

‘But more recently, I remember some really awful times—’

‘Like what?’ Martin came back quick as a flash.

‘Sunday lunches when nothing Mum did was right …’ Helena quailed as she thought about it. ‘He was on at her all the time. Had her jumping up and down to fetch this, that and the other. Never letting her finish a sentence, interrupting her …’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, all couples bicker.’

‘It wasn’t bickering, Martin, it was bullying.’

‘Not as I remember it.’