Being at home somehow made me think about ringing Ben, and round four thirty I gave in to the temptation.

I got his voicemail. As I had done the last few times I’d tried. I left a message, ‘Wondering what planet you’re on. Contact mother ship. Lots of love.’

I didn’t ask what I wanted to ask. ‘Are you all right? Or are you depressed?’

I don’t enjoy worrying about Ben as much as I do. He’s a grown man, for God’s sake. And he seemed currently to have an ongoing girlfriend. Tracey. I know how some mothers react to their precious sons developing girlfriends, but I can honestly say I wasn’t at all jealous. I was just glad he’d got someone.

And I didn’t mind him not ringing me if he was spending all his time with her. If he was happy.

If he was happy …?

Fleur had been right … as she had an annoying habit of sometimes being right, just when I was getting most exasperated with her. It did worry me that Ben hadn’t introduced Tracey.

Such thoughts – and the invoices – preoccupied me. When I next checked the time, I realized I was in danger of being late for my rendezvous – interview? – in Brighton. I rushed out of the house.

FIVE

‘Do you drink whiskey?’ Ingrid Richards demanded as soon as I got through the door. ‘I start drinking whiskey at six p.m. It is my aim not to drink any earlier in the day. That’s an ambition in which I frequently fail.’

‘I’ll have a glass with you. Thank you,’ I said.

Normally, as I say, on my first visit to a client’s home, I would wear sharp-proof gloves, never knowing what level of squalor or safety I would be faced with. But I was glad I hadn’t put them on for Ingrid. It was clear that, at this stage at least, she wanted our meeting to have the appearance of a purely social encounter.

The first thing that struck me about Ingrid Richards was her face. Though fine-boned, rather beautiful in shape, under a layer of freckles its skin was criss-crossed by a thousand tiny lines. It looked like old leather. It was the face of someone who had spent a lot of time exposed to the sun in hot countries and whose constant smoking had contributed to the tanning process.

On her forehead there was a scar. At least two inches long, the wound that had left it must have been deep. Maybe the kind of gash you get from hitting the windscreen in a car crash?

There was a Gauloise hanging from her lips when she opened the door. It stayed there as she gestured me to an armchair and went across to the open kitchen area to organize the drinks. The flat was on the eastern side of the square. The tall windows offered a good view of the sea. A May evening, sun sparkling on the water with a promise of summer.