‘I see him sometimes,’ Marina said, with a level gaze. ‘But I can’t go dancing with him any more.’

‘Did you have an affair with him?’ Now that Camilla had asked the question, she found that she did not really want a straightforward answer.

‘He’s a very close friend, and I hope he will remain so. He’s a good doctor too. I often ask for his advice. And speaking of doctors, Camilla, I wish you’d go and see Edward. I don’t like the look of that bruise above your eye, and the area around it seems inflamed. Don’t you have an appointment with him any day now?’

‘I’ll go up soon,’ Camilla answered, knowing that her father would come down and replace her.

She had missed her appointment with Edward. It was true that the wound was inflamed where she had hit her head, during her unfortunate encounter with Johnson Kiberu. She looked at it in the bathroom mirror and smeared a thick coat of antiseptic cream along the open wound before re-covering it as best she could. It was time to go back to London.

Back in the city she had found a pile of mail in her flat, including an angry note from Tom Bartlett. He had telephoned countless times, he wrote, and he was damned if he would try again until she contacted him. Camilla could not face a discussion with her agent, but the fact that she had no modelling work created a frightening uncertainty about her working future. Her body felt leaden, and she had no energy. At night her dreams still brought her back to the moment when panga sliced her head, and she recalled the salty-sweet taste of her own blood. The cut was throbbing when she lifted the telephone and rang Edward’s rooms to make a new appointment.

‘You’ve been dozing, I see.’ He was standing over her, holding her coat out as she opened her eyes. ‘We’re going to the bar at the Connaught. It’s relatively quiet.’

He ordered drinks and frowned slightly when Camilla opened her bag to take out her cigarettes. She lit one anyway, and sipped at her vodka.

‘My mother has leukaemia. She says there’s nothing they can do.’

‘There are new treatments, although they do have unpleasant side effects. But she’s a young woman. I would have thought her physician might persuade her to try them.’

‘She doesn’t want that. And the specialist says it’s unlikely that it would make a difference. The cancer is too far advanced.’

‘Perhaps she needs more encouragement. What does your father say?’