Annie shook her head. ‘Julia! Where does all this come from? I swear to God you watch far too many docusoaps on TV.’

Julia rapped her over the knuckles with a breadstick.

‘You’ve got to admit – it’s possible.’

Annie shrugged her shoulders. She couldn’t deny it was possible.

‘Do you have a photo of Imelda? What does she look like?’

Billie shook her head. ‘I don’t have a photo, but for a woman in her seventies she looks extraordinary. Long, dark, wavy hair and sea-green eyes.’

She stood up to clear the plates. ‘Imelda did say to me that perhaps the money was the only way that my mother was able to show me that she cared.’

Julia grinned triumphantly. ‘I knew it! Madame Burova is your mother. What’s for pudding?’

As Billie served the tiramisu, something was clearly still troubling Annie.

‘You do realise that if Imelda is your mother then she’s either a liar or a bit of a hussy.’

Julia narrowed her eyes and waggled her dessert spoon laden with cream and sponge in Annie’s direction. ‘That’s not a very nice way to talk about your friend’s potential mother. You haven’t even met the woman. If she finds out you’ve been bad-mouthing her, she’ll probably put a curse on you!’

‘And if you drop any of that tiramisu on my tablecloth, I’ll put a curse on you!’ warned Billie, laughing.

‘I wasn’t being unkind. I was simply assessing the facts objectively.’ Drinking wine had the curious effect of making Annie more sober. ‘I was merely making an extrapolation from the information that we have before us.’

‘Come on then, Miss Marple. Elaborate on your extrapolation.’ Alcohol just made Billie louder and more verbose.

‘Well, if Madame Burova is your mother, then either she does know who the father is but won’t tell you or doesn’t know because she was sleeping with more than one man at the same time.’

Julia took a sharp intake of breath as she tried to conceal a splodge of dessert on the tablecloth by covering it with her napkin. ‘Now you’re accusing Madame Burova of having a threesome!’

‘I didn’t mean at exactly the same time, as you well know. And I saw that,’ Annie replied, nodding towards Julia’s napkin.

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