‘She will pick on Louise, you had Anabel today. Louise is also very beautiful, though not as sexy.’

‘I shall try and be ready for her.’

‘I’d let the girls protect themselves if they were mine.’

But they are not, thought Matilda, feeling sorry for John, unmarried, childless, sexless. What did he do on long winter evenings?

‘You are an enigma,’ she said later when she kissed his cheek goodnight. John felt complimented but not pleased and before going to bed checked his engagement diary and was annoyed to find there was no way of getting down to see Matilda until November. Big Feet must wait, he thought, switching off the light, feeling for his revolver.

In her room Matilda was not composing letters to The Times but congratulating herself on the fact that by the time the cheques she had written that day had bounced she would be dead. Let Mark worry. It would do him good to feel he had always been right in his opinion of his parents as unworldly, feckless people. As for her host John, if he had thought earlier of calling himself Piers a feast of confusion and derision would have been lost to anyone interested in her entourage, such as Claud. Matilda liked the words ‘interested in her entourage’ and mulled them over gently before snoring.

Listening to the snores, John lay thinking about Matilda, remembering their youth. It had been too late to hold her, even if he had wanted to, when she had come running to him after killing Felicity. He had been glad she had killed Felicity, who was a nuisance. Desperate Matilda, so upset so long ago. ‘I was so frightened I peed in the snow. It was so cold –’ She had minded the cold more than killing. He had made her drink brandy, taken her along to Tom. And now, he thought, she’s past fifty and snores like the devil.

19

ON HER WAY to lunch with Anne, Matilda strolled from Chelsea to Harrods. It had occurred to her to surprise Anabel by leaving a really beautiful dress worn only once. She would choose a dress which would suit both Anabel and Louise. They would find it, be aware of its cost, both want it. They would quarrel over who should have it. Anabel, the more ruthless and determined, would get it. Adrenaline would flow, brisk up the funeral. Later Louise would make her husband buy her an even more expensive dress and the anger would spread to him while Mark, who by this time would have visited the bank manager, would be furious. Only Claud would be delighted. Of all my children I love Claud the best, Matilda thought, as she walked into Harrods by the Hans Place entrance and strolled through the men’s department to the lifts.