For a moment, a very short moment, I considered his words. ‘So do I,’ I murmured.

Then he turned over and he laid his mouth on that part of my neck above my collarbone and I thought, I could stay here for ever.

Then the wave finally hit the shore.

Chapter Fourteen

I tried my best to avoid her, but to no avail. Dashing out of the village shop with water and badly needed headache pills, I saw she’d spotted me already.

‘You’re out early,’ she cooed, checking her gold watch, her perfect bob swinging like a shampoo advert. Helen Kelsey – the summation of all I loathed about the Cotswolds, the twee main street, the shops that sold too much sickly fudge and pastel teacosies and nothing real; the unsmiling shopkeepers who eyed my noisy children suspiciously each time we entered.

‘Going up to town.’ Subtly I backed away. ‘In a bit of a rush, actually.’

‘Ooh, lovely,’ she purred. ‘Meeting James there? Nice bit of lunch?’ Coyly she raised an overplucked ginger brow, insinuating a friendship we didn’t have. ‘Or perhaps a night alone for the grown-ups?’

I stared at the stubbly regrowth of her eyebrow. ‘He’s away on business,’ I said, inching towards my car.

‘Gone on ahead? I saw him last night in Oxford, actually. Frank actually took me out for dinner.’ Badly she attempted self-deprecation. ‘Lucky old me!’

I looked at her. ‘You can’t have seen him. He’s in Vietnam.’

‘I’m sure it was James’s car.’ Her frown was almost studious, her pink lipstick like it had been sealed on with varnish. ‘I remember because he was going so fast, silly boy, and talking on his phone at the same time. A girl beside him.’

‘Can’t have been James,’ I said, grasping my bag. ‘Sorry, Helen, but I’ve really got to get going. See you soon.’

She was poisonous, reputation apparently well-earned as the local gossip, according to the few school mums who had befriended me; she took pleasure in malice and spite, they said. Deep below the surface there must be some terrible insecurity, some reason she was so odious. But I hadn’t seen it yet.

Why then did I feel shaken as I swallowed my aspirin and turned my own car towards London?

I had such mixed feelings about going to the newspaper that at the last minute I slunk up the fire stairs to avoid the busy lift. Xavier was looking at the page layout on his desk when I stuck my head around his door.

‘My my, it’s Mata Hari,’ he drawled.

‘Ha blinking ha.’ I took my sunglasses off.

‘Why, pray, are you wearing a not very good disguise?’

‘I’m just feeling shy. Pour us a coffee, please.’ Peeling off my woolly hat, I slumped on the leather sofa. ‘I’m absolutely gasping and I’ve just done 100 m.p.h. the whole way down the M40.’