Marianne’s not meeting her deadline could be likened to the vital component in a machine going missing. If every author on a publisher’s list failed to deliver, the machine would grind to a halt. As for one’s creativity – if someone rang up while you were composing a passage not yet down on paper, by the time you’d snarled, ‘I can’t talk now!’ and replaced the receiver the passage you’d been mentally writing had disintegrated never to return.

‘I expect you’re pretty busy yourself,’ she replied to Jake, while he hung his coat on the battered old coat-tree that Ralph had bought in a junk shop, years ago.

‘And I’ll be off on another of my trips, soon,’ he said as they went into the living room.

Where Shirley’s habitual Chanel No. 5 scent still lingered in the air. Would Jake notice it? A thought that brought home to Marianne the two-way deception in which she suddenly found herself enmeshed.

She offered Jake some sherry and said while she was pouring it, ‘I have to tell you I’ve been wondering what you could possibly want to discuss privately with me. Since neither your wedding anniversary, nor Laura’s birthday, is looming up, you haven’t come to consult me about what to give her!’

‘If only it were something like that, Marianne,’ he said as she handed him a brimming glass.

‘You look as if you need a whisky, but I haven’t any. And if you’re going to tell me that things have gone wrong between you and Laura, I’m not going to believe it.’

Marianne had not, until today, seen him clad for the office. The business suit he had on, and his dark silk tie, made him look older than he appeared in casual clothes. And an incongruous husband for the woman Laura really was.

Jake sipped some sherry and tried to smile. It had never been easy for him to share his problems, nor was he accustomed to having to do so.

‘This morning Laura and I had our first quarrel,’ he said eventually. ‘There was something she wanted to handle her way and I insisted on it being dealt with my way.’

The au pair had evidently erred in some manner or other, and Marianne could imagine Laura wanting to give the girl the benefit of the doubt. Jake, though, was a man of quick decisions in all his dealings. To achieve what he had he would have to be. And so much for Shirley’s supposition!

‘Does the quarrel you mentioned concern what you want to discuss with me?’ she asked him.

‘Directly, no. Indirectly, yes.’

Marianne put down her glass. ‘If you’re going to talk to me in double-Dutch, Jake, I must tell you I’d much prefer plain English.’