It was rather a shame that, after all her proud boasting about knowing people, eventually Thea had to call on Molly. Molly really did know everyone, who either knew, or would find out, who Thea needed to get in touch with. But Thea and Molly had parted on rather odd terms: Molly on the defensive – presumably about Gerald – and Thea … well, Thea had just upped and run away. If she hadn’t felt so strongly about Rory’s paintings, she would never have dared pick up the phone.

‘Molly? It’s Thea.’

‘Thea! Are you all right? That man hasn’t done anything dreadful to you, has he?’

Thea could tell that part of Molly wanted Rory to have loved and left her (even though he’d hardly had time). Molly liked people to get their just desserts – not ‘Death by Chocolate’ when they deserved cold semolina.

‘No, I’m fine. How are things your end?’ Thea wouldn’t have said this if she could have avoided it, but if she’d gone right in and asked for Molly’s help, Molly would have assumed the worst.

Thea held the phone a little away from her ear while Molly went on and on about the state of Thea’s house, the washing machine repair man and a thousand other irritations for which Thea should have taken responsibility. When the recriminations had slowed down she cut in. ‘Molly, darling, I know I did a bad thing, but it’s all right so far and I’m sure the kids are fine. Petal will sort them out.’

‘Petal! Don’t talk to me about her.’

As this was the last thing Thea wanted to discuss she complied. ‘All right. Now, Molly, I need your help. I can’t think of who else to turn to.’ Molly loved to be helpful and a little flattery would do no harm either.

‘Well?’

‘I think Rory may well be an artistic genius. I need someone to look at his work, but I don’t know who. If I took some slides, could you think of whom I should send them to?’

Molly was silent for a few moments, a rare state of affairs Thea would normally have appreciated. Now it just made her nervous. ‘I’ll have to ring you back,’ she said eventually. ‘Have you got the number there? And the address? I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, take some good photographs. Have you got a decent camera?’ Molly had been on holiday with Thea’s Leica M4, but because it was a quiet, discreet camera, that didn’t have a phallic symbol which went in and out, or any other obvious bells and whistles and automatic focusing, Molly didn’t think much of it.

‘Yes. My Leica’s fine. I’ll have to buy some colour reversal film to take slides, but I should be able to find that locally.’