‘You,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to decide what to do with you. It’ll have to be an accident, of course. A car accident might be best. We’ll say you were driving my car and you weren’t used to it. Instead of braking at the corner you hit the accelerator and shot straight into the lake. And I know you can’t swim.’

‘You can’t do that,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘ You won’t have any choice. You’ll be dead, you see, before you get into the car.’

He continued to stroke her hair with the palm of his hand. He slid his hand down to the back of her neck and with the other grasped her throat. She tried to scream but there was no sound.

By the time they arrived she was almost unconscious. Secretly George blamed Benwell for that. If he had not been so eager to hear all the details they might have interrupted the conversation earlier. As it was they arrived in time. But the girl had been given a terrible shock and he wasn’t convinced it was justified. Then he blamed Molly. Where the bloody hell was she? he thought. What was she thinking of leaving the girl on her own?

Molly was still at the Cadver. She stood in the small white bedroom where Joanna had slept as a child and watched Marcus Grenville kneel on the floor and cry over the body of his daughter. Shock and a terrible guilt paralysed her.

‘It’s my gun,’ Marcus said. ‘Why did she have to take my gun? For God’s sake, I taught her to shoot with it.’ Then he looked at Molly. ‘You don’t think it could have been some sort of accident?’

Molly shook her head. There was a patchwork quilt on the bed and blood on the carpet. Why didn’t I see, she thought, how desperate she was, how ill? I knew she was unhappy but I’ve had experience enough to recognise the danger of suicide. I was too wrapped up in the ridiculous competition with George. I should have made more effort to help.

‘Why did she do it?’ Marcus cried. ‘I thought she was settled. My little girl … I didn’t realise … Why didn’t she come to me?’

Because you’d caused damage enough, Molly thought, but she said nothing. There was little point now in going over all the details.

By the door Olivia stood, dry eyed, and watched them.

Ursula’s funeral was held two days later. It was a quiet affair. Sally arrived just in time for the service and disappeared immediately afterwards to Manchester Airport to catch a flight to Frankfurt.

‘It would serve her right,’ George said, ‘if Ursula had left all her money to a cats’ home.’

But he was glad to see the back of her.