Giles barked with pleasure, threw the ball of string into the flowerpot. ‘Not if he dies in bed, they won’t. He hasn’t got one in bed. His hair is all everywhere, yuck!, all over on the pillows, straggly, like a witch –’

He might just have butted me in the gut: if Helen wanted to know why he was sullen, sulky and rude, and what was bugging him, I could now tell her – unless I choked her first.

‘Enough, Giles. That’s it. I don’t want to hear any more.’

He was quick to sense that perhaps he had gone a little too far. He began to collect his bits and pieces in silence. Face tight, brow wrinkled with worry. There was plenty of time ahead for wrinkled brows on Giles’s face. I took his arm, and pulled him up.

‘Be a good fellow. Let’s not talk about Eric. Okay? Nothing to do with us, right? Not my business, not your business either. Okay?’

‘Okay. Shall I go and undo our pillows, upstairs?’

‘They’ll get damp. Leave them alone, until the summer holidays.’

‘You want to come and see me work this trap?’

‘I want to see you wash your hands. We’re off to see the Wizard.’

‘Wizard? What Wizard?’

‘Arthur Theobald. Forgotten him?’

‘Well, when can we do this?’

‘When you’ve got yourself the bait. Can’t set a trap without bait,’ I said.

The Theobalds were typical of their breed. They are usually to be found drifting quietly in the shallows of Guildford, Cheltenham, Bath and Tunbridge Wells. Ex-army, ex-Consular, ex-private boarding school. These were the latter. Dottie Theobald was pale, faded, wearing the same bemused expression which she had worn since leaving her mother’s womb. She had a plait of fairish hair, a straw hat and a denim skirt, and English teeth, long like a sheep’s. Arthur, her husband, a little older, scrawny, muscular, very bronzed, in a pair of floppy khaki shorts and laceless army boots.

They were welcoming and kind, offered instant coffee and Lulu biscuits and said what a devil Sidonie Prideaux was at the bridge table.

Then we discussed how best to help Giles in the short time available, and that perhaps it would be a good idea (’jolly’ idea, said Dottie) if he arrived at nine-thirty in the morning, stayed for lunch, left at two-thirty when they took their naps. That way he would hear French spoken for five hours solid. Total immersion.

Neat and precise.

Giles stared into the middle distance with a blank face.

Arthur noticed this quickly. ‘Well, you and Dottie chat away; Giles and I will go about our business, eh? Like birds? Feathered sort? Tropical birds, not those wretched budgerigars, real birds. Like ’em?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Giles said politely.