“I don’t really know,” Lindsay replied. “I’m not exactly flavor of the month as far as journalism is concerned, and I don’t really know what else I’m capable of doing to earn a living.” She took a deep breath. The conversation so far had been superficial to the point of boredom. It was time she got to work. “And the changes there have been while I was away certainly haven’t been for the better. Imagine how I felt, coming home to find one of my mates behind bars for murdering one of my ex-lovers!”

“Did you really not know anything about . . . about Alison till you got back?” Ruth asked, pushing back the mousey wisps of hair that had escaped from her inefficiently constructed French pleat.

Lindsay shook her head. “Not a thing. It completely shattered me when I found out what had happened.”

“It was a devastating experience for all of us,” Antonis said gravely, playing with the stem of his wine glass. Lindsay noticed with a shiver of distaste that even his fingers were covered with fine black hairs.

“Jackie especially, considering she didn’t do it,” Sophie said dryly, getting up to fetch another bottle of wine.

Ruth nodded vigorously. “I’ve never been able to believe she was guilty,” she said sagely.

“Why’s that, Ruth?” Lindsay asked. “After all, it was partly your evidence that convicted her.”

Ruth looked as if she might burst into tears. “I know. I . . . I could hardly sleep for days afterward. But I couldn’t lie, could I? Not about what I heard. But it seemed so . . . so cold-blooded. To make love to her, then to do that.”

Antonis ran a hand through his luxuriant dark hair and said in the exaggeratedly polite tone of voice one uses to a small child who is letting the side down in public, “But I have told you before, Ruthie, we do not know what took place between them. Alison could be very provoking. I have watched her deliberately goad people to anger.”

“I know, darling. But Jackie? I mean, we knew her. She was always so . . .” Ruth tailed off under his gaze.

“Alison must have said something to provoke her to fury,” Antonis stated with an air of finality. He drained his glass and refilled it from the fresh bottle.

“It must be a terrible memory for you to live with, Ruth,” Sophie said. “To think that if you’d only done something when you heard them quarreling, Alison might still be alive.”

Ruth’s bottom lip trembled, but before she could speak, Antonis butted in authoritatively. “Ruth has tortured herself enough with that thought. I have told her, there was nothing she could have done. Even if she had diverted Jackie that day, there would have been another time.”