‘Gareth is seeing to the drinks – and of course, you know everybody, I think.’ Diana continued to chat over her shoulder.

Maddy smiled. ‘Yes, of course.’

There was no way on earth that she was going to ask about Peter. If he was there, she would know. Without even seeing him, she was sure she would know.

‘Hello, Maddy. Pretty as a picture as always,’ Gareth James-Jordan boomed from his great height just inside the door, sounding like the kind of children’s entertainer who would send even the bravest playground thug scuttling behind his mother’s skirts. ‘What are we drinking?’ Whatever it was, Maddy thought, it appeared that Gareth had had quite a lot of it already.

‘Just a mineral water, please.’ Maddy kept her back to the crowd she could hear humming. ‘I’m driving, but I’ll maybe have something alcoholic later.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Gareth roared, peering at the non- alcoholic selection on the sideboard. ‘Er, which ones are minerals, Maddy? My eyes only focus on brandy.’

Laughing, Maddy helped herself. She liked Gareth. Despite his loudness he was a nice man and a good trainer. The brains and the money came from Diana. And Diana never hesitated to trample all over people to achieve her ends. Hence the fall-out with Fran and Richard.

She moved away from the sideboard, anchoring herself between an elm bookcase and a table she had always admired with claw feet that were the very devil to dust. He wasn’t in the room.

‘How’s tricks?’ John Hastings, the trainer who employed Suzy, paused on his way to refill his glass, his eyes skimming over Maddy’s cleavage. She wasn’t insulted. John Hastings always cast a professional eye over horses and women with the same detachment. Horses excited him more. ‘Your Suzy tell you about that thing of Sir Neville’s, did she? Smashing little filly.’

Maddy wasn’t sure whether John was referring to her sister or the horse, but chanced it was the latter. ‘No. We didn’t have much time to talk about work this evening. It’s very kind of you to promise her some good rides this season, John. I know she appreciates it.’

‘So do I.’ His leer was practised. ‘I’ve always had an eye for a decent apprentice. I hope to get her on the racecourse by the end of the month.’

He continued talking about horses and entries, about viruses and weights, and Maddy nodded and said ‘oh, yes’ and ‘of course’ and ‘no, really?’ in what she hoped were all the right places, and all the time her eyes were fixed on the door.

Diana was right. She knew everyone in the Small Room – a drastic misnomer as it stretched into infinity between linen fold panels and beneath carved ceilings, and would have swallowed up Maddy’s entire cottage in one gulp. Trainers, jockeys, villagers, jockey’s wives, trainers’ secretaries; all friends or at least nodding acquaintances from Milton St John; all gathered to discuss the ending of the jump season and the start of the flat. The same as dozens of other gatherings she had attended in the time that Milton St John had been her home. With one exception. Peter wasn’t there.