It was a beautiful spring day. I couldn’t associate my sweet friend with this place. Nor, of course, could I get in.

I wouldn’t leave the Kemps alone. I went round to the house almost daily.

At first Alec was jovial and defensive. ‘She’s all right,’ he assured me on a day after they’d been to visit. ‘A little better, we thought, didn’t we, Elizabeth?’ His wife nodded dumbly. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for you to feel so crusading about all this, Kate. She’s where she needs to be at the moment. None of us like it.’ He gave me a challenging look. ‘Her being in there isn’t a fact we want broadcast, of course.’

‘I bet it isn’t.’

Alec stepped over to me, leaning down to put his face close to mine. I remembered for a second how I used to dream of him leaning over to kiss me. ‘Look here,’ he hissed. ‘If you let anyone know about this . . .’

I met his gaze, steadily.

‘Don’t come here again,’ he finished in a low voice. He left the room.

Elizabeth began to cry. ‘She told us they’d put her in one of those – those things where you can’t move your arms.’

‘You mean a straitjacket,’ I said brutally. I felt like screaming. ‘What did you expect? It’s a mental hospital. That’s what they do.’

‘But I thought – being who she is – that they’d be kinder. You know, treat her a bit differently. She’s in there with all nature of people.’

‘Since when has madness distinguished between classes?’

Elizabeth put her hand to her head in a gesture of despair.

‘Who can get her out? Just him?’

She nodded slowly. Her hands were never still as she talked. ‘It’s not that he wants her in there – you have to understand that. He loves her very dearly. He wouldn’t let you see it, of course, but he’s so afraid and ashamed of what’s happening to her. Of how she is. Things in our family haven’t always been – ’ She stopped, silenced herself. ‘We’ve been at our wits’ end.’

Speaking more gently, I said, ‘I’ll go and see her. When are visitors allowed?’

Elizabeth looked up at me. ‘I don’t think they’ll let you. They said close family only.’ I saw an unusual look of determination enter her face. ‘Perhaps if I were to write you a note. You might have to pretend to be her sister. If it had Alec’s signature . . .’

‘Being who he is,’ I quipped. ‘But he’s hardly going to sign anything for me now, is he?’

Elizabeth looked at me with surprising calm. ‘Don’t you think I’m familiar with my husband’s handwriting by now?’

I stared at her, only grasping slowly what she was saying.

‘I daren’t write it while he’s here. I’ll bring it round to your house later.’

As I was leaving, Alec appeared out of his study and I realized he had been waiting for me. His expression was very stern. ‘You’d better keep your mouth shut, Katie.’