It was Eleanor Baladine, speaking so close to me I jumped. She was on the other side from me of a large shrub with spiky leaves. I sipped my Malvern water thoughtfully and kept an eye on the flash of turquoise linen, which was all I could see of her.

“I’m annoyed with Abigail,” Eleanor continued. “She says Rhiannon got tired of swimming when we were in Limoux and doesn’t want to compete. I wish she had said something before we had the programs printed: I tried telling her how bad it looks for one of the organizers to withdraw her own daughter from competition. I thought it was ridiculous the way she kept running off with her daughter to Toulouse for little shopping trips, as if they were girlfriends together. My girls were in the pool six hours a day and loved every minute of it.”

“But you’re so intense, Eleanor,” Jennifer Poilevy said. “Not everyone has your drive. Of course your girls inherited your competitive spirit. It’s a shame about poor Robbie, but I do wish you and BB had brought him to France with you. He might have kept the twins from terrifying me with their climbing and jumping. Half the time we were there, I was scared they were going to be brought in on stretchers.”

“We certainly never have to worry about that with Robbie,” Eleanor said dryly.

“Eleanor—there you are.” Baladine had come up to the women from the other side of the house. The sound of his voice woke in me such a frenzy of hatred and of helpless rage that I had to move away before I blew my cover by leaping through the shrubbery and strangling him.

Before I got out of earshot I heard Baladine say, “Did your sister say anything about visiting Robbie at Camp Muggerton on Friday? Major Enderby called to say the boy’s Aunt Claudia took him out for dinner and got him back after lights–out.”

My stomach jumped. I hadn’t expected the camp commandant to check up on a family visitor. That meant I had to move as fast as possible.

I scurried past the media tent into the kitchen, since the bathroom we media folk were allowed to use was there. Rosario the nanny was washing glassware while caterers assembled monstrous platters of shrimp, mushroom tartlets, and other delicacies. The contrast to the kitchen at Coolis, where roaches crawled over congealing piles of grease, and women swore at each other as they lugged dented pots around, made my anger start to boil again. When a waiter offered me a tray of salmon tartare with a perfect circle of caviar in the middle, I turned him away with more fury than manners.