‘Oh, yes, I will. You listen to this and see how you like it. After all the fun and games! Teaching me how to swing …’ She made a curious little retching sound in her throat and looked at Nurse Kettle with a kind of astonishment. ‘You know,’ she said. ‘Golf. Well, so what does he do? He says, this morning, when he comes to the car with me, he says he thinks it will be better if we don’t see much of each other.’ She suddenly flung out a string of adjectives that Nurse Kettle would have considered unprintable. ‘That’s George Lacklander for you,’ Kitty Cartarette said.

‘You’re a wicked woman,’ Nurse Kettle said. ‘I forbid you to talk like this. Sir George may have been silly and infatuated. I dare say you’ve got what it takes, as they say, and he’s a widower and I always say there’s a trying time for gentlemen just as there is – but that’s by the way. What I mean: if he’s been silly it’s you that’s led him on,’ Nurse Kettle said, falling back on the inexorable precepts of her kind. ‘You caught our dear Colonel and not content with that, you set your cap at poor Sir George. You don’t mind who you upset or how unhappy you make other people. I know your sort. You’re no good. You’re no good at all. I shouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t responsible for what’s happened. Not a scrap surprised.’

‘What the hell do you mean?’ Kitty whispered. She curled back in her chair and staring at Nurse Kettle she said: ‘You with your poor Sir George! Do you know what I think about your poor Sir George? I think he murdered your poor dear Colonel, Miss Kettle.’

Nurse Kettle sprang to her feet. The wrought-iron chair rocked against the table. There was a clatter of china and a jug of milk overturned into Kitty Cartarette’s lap.

‘How dare you!’ Nurse Kettle cried out. ‘Wicked! Wicked! Wicked!’ She heard herself grow shrill and in the very heat of her passion she remembered an important item in her code: Never Raise the Voice. So although she would have found it less difficult to scream like a train she did contrive to speak quietly. Strangely commonplace phrases emerged and Kitty, slant-eyed, listened to them. ‘I would advise you,’ Nurse Kettle quavered, ‘to choose your words. People can get into serious trouble passing remarks like that.’ She achieved an appalling little laugh. ‘Murdered the Colonel!’ she said, and her voice wobbled desperately. ‘The idea! If it wasn’t so dreadful it’d be funny. With what may I ask? And how?’

Kitty, too, had risen and milk dribbled from her ruined skirt to the terrace. She was beside herself with rage.

‘How?’ she stammered. ‘I’ll tell you how and I’ll tell you with what. With a golf club and his mother’s shooting-stick. That’s what. Just like a golf ball it was. Bald and shining. Easy to hit. Or an egg. Easy –’