In the morning she drank strong coffee and hunted for her cigarettes, but the packet was empty. Keith Short’s weekly column would appear today, and she felt ill as she thought about the photograph and the snide remarks that would accompany it. She put on a pair of jeans and a sweater, pulled a hat low over her brow and headed for the newsagent. But the paper carried no mention of visiting politicians or their preferred entertainment, and Camilla stood on the grey pavement weak with gratitude and relief. The hall porter greeted her as she returned to the flat.

‘Your post arrived, Miss. I was about to take it upstairs.’

‘Thank you, Albert,’ she said, taking the bundle he handed her. There was a brief note from Short and she opened and read it as she climbed the stairs. ‘Chucked out the negative and killed the story. You owe me one,’ he had written, in his untidy scrawl. Inside the flat Camilla sifted through the remainder of the letters and tore up an envelope addressed in her father’s hand. The telephone rang, and she picked it up and immediately replaced it. Then she lifted it again and left it off the hook. Escape. She needed to escape, to go somewhere she could think, straighten out her head. She took a suitcase from the top of the bedroom cupboard and flung some clothes and toiletries into it. On her dressing table was a photograph of her parents and she slid it out of its silver frame and ripped it into tiny pieces. She was still trying to decide where she might go when the doorbell rang.

‘You have to come with me, darling,’ Marina said. ‘I have a taxi downstairs, and I want you to come with me now, so that we can sit down together and talk.’

‘You’re the very last person I want to talk to. Please, Mother, let me be. Leave me alone. Please.’

‘Camilla, I want you to give me a chance. I’m begging you to give me this one chance. It’s important for both of us.’

‘No. What’s important is to put as much distance as possible between us. Between me and both of my parents. That’s the only thing that I want to do right now.’

‘I’d like you to come down to Burford with me.’ Marina put out a tentative hand to touch Camilla’s sleeve. ‘Just the two of us. There are things I need to tell you.’

‘Things I don’t need to hear.’