On her walk home with her mother Carolyn felt the same panic that she had had some years ago when she had been pushed into the deep end of the swimming pool before she could swim. There was the same gasping breathlessness, the same sense of inevitable pain. Then, she had fought to the side of the pool and saved herself. Now she felt helpless. The sight of Ramsay close to her mother had confirmed all her worst fears. He must know everything.

In the house her mother suddenly became kind and solicitous. Carolyn wasn’t looking well, she said. There was a lot of flu about. Perhaps she should go to bed. But Carolyn was frightened to leave her mother alone and sat with her in the kitchen. Stella’s apparent concern for her well-being made her feel sick and angry, but it was better to put up with that than to be in bed, not knowing what Stella was up to.

“When will Dad be home?” she asked at last. Her mother was frying onions and mushrooms in a pan, and there was a smell of garlic.

“I don’t know,” Stella said. “He should be here by now. Perhaps he’s working late.” She seemed quite unconcerned and Carolyn marvelled at adults’ capacity for deceit. She was desperate for her father’s return.

“Haven’t you any homework to do, darling?” Stella asked. “Or violin practise?”

But Carolyn shook her head. She knew she could not concentrate on anything until she had spoken to her father.

Stella began to chop parsley with a wide-bladed knife, holding the handle with one hand and hitting the blade quickly with the palm of the other. Carolyn watched, fascinated, and when the phone rang, she was unable to move. Stella set the knife down on the chopping board and went out to answer the phone.

“That was Daddy,” she said when she returned, “He’s got a meeting and will be working late tonight, so it’ll just be us for supper.”

She smiled, and Carolyn, faint and exhausted, thought, This must be what it’s like to drown.

Chapter Nineteen

In the days of waiting for Max to make a decision, Mary became obsessed with the idea of her story. She had never, she supposed, been a person with a highly developed sense of proportion. She smoked too much, drank too much, loved too much. Now she wanted to see the story through to its conclusion, and even her desire for Max occupied less of her thoughts.

When Hunter and Ramsay were waiting outside her flat on Tuesday night, she was in Newcastle, wandering round the bars where reporters hung out, talking, picking up information, drinking whisky, buying drinks. Later she staggered to the students’ house there, woke the neighbours up by banging on the door to be let in, and spent the night on the settee.