I tried to concentrate. ‘You don’t believe either of them, you mean,’ I joked, but my mind was racing now; things slotting together neatly like cards in a dealer’s pack.

‘What?’

I couldn’t say them. ‘Either of those two words.’

Seb played along gallantly. ‘No, I don’t believe either of them. And you know, perhaps –’ he held me away from him for a second and searched my face with something like hope, ‘perhaps they’ve got the wrong house?’

I thought of the lilies, the car outside Bel’s party, the text last night. Hardly the Virgin Mary.

‘Maybe,’ I said brightly. ‘Maybe they have.’

* * *

At Malcolm’s house I had apparently arrived at the most inopportune moment – in the middle of a family brunch. Most peculiar for a Tuesday morning in November, and definitely most unorthodox for this dysfunctional family.

The housekeeper, one of Malcolm’s many ostentations, a flat-faced Filipino woman who always looked terrified, led me into what Barbara termed the drawing room. (Malcolm’s wife Barbara, Alex’s mother, was the only class in this marriage.)

There was no Alex, but the rest of the family were huddled around a groaning drinks-table at the far end of the showy room, all thick pile carpet and polished dark furniture, expensive dull paintings of stags in the glen and stony-faced women in pink crinolines clutching hairy lapdogs. Were we meant to think they were Malcolm’s ancestry, I’d always wondered, because they sure as hell weren’t. I lingered in the corner, trying to fade into the frightfully tasteful William Morris wallpaper, until Malcolm greeted me as if he’d actually been expecting me. In fact, I could have sworn he looked almost excited as he kissed me heartily on both cheeks.

Behind Malcolm was the silver-framed photo of Alex as a lanky boy, proudly holding a cricket bat, his hair on end as usual, his white jumper much too big, his younger brother Tom grinning behind him, both missing a few teeth – the photo we’d had framed for Barbara’s sixtieth. I winced at the memory of the night that was slowly seeping back into my consciousness – the night it all went wrong.

I spotted Serena draped around a rather flushed Tom, and with a sinking heart I recognised the gleam in Malcolm’s eye. He was obviously anticipating a scrap.

‘Drink, Maggie?’ Malcolm held up a jug of Bucks Fizz, beady eyes glinting.

‘Don’t mind if I do, thanks,’ I said pleasantly. My adrenaline levels were already so high I was practically flying. ‘So, this is a first, isn’t it?’ I accepted a glass. ‘Brunch. What’s the occasion?’

‘Oh, you know, old girl.’ He clinked my glass with his, his East-End drawl as gravelly as ever. ‘My merger with Stebsons, Barbara getting out of hospital, of course.’