She laughed. ‘Oh dear! I think my search for a creative outlet is proving a bit like Tigger’s breakfast,’ she said. ‘Sadly I don’t think my future lies in being the new Jane Austen, so it will have to be something else. But this is a heavenly place. I’m having a fascinating time, being fed like a prize pig, and so enjoying seeing Giles and Isobel again. Some of the people on the course are hilarious.’ Her character sketches, which amused Adam very much, would not have flattered some of her co-writers. ‘Oh, and by the way,’ she said after she had regaled him with the saga of Stanley’s thwarted genius and Morwenna’s gentle gloom, and made him laugh about Bunty’s girlish skittishness, ‘do you remember that couple we once picnicked with at Garsington a few years back – I think she was a stockbroker or something – and you told me afterwards that he’d made a fortune buying and selling some upmarket mail-order food company? We tried to fix a date to meet again but nothing came of it and we lost touch.’

‘I remember.’

‘Well, you’ll never guess,’ she said with exaggerated casualness, ‘but that chap, Christopher Piper, is here on the course too.’

Alarm bells rang in Adam’s head. He remembered all too well Louisa’s obvious, instant attraction to Christopher and how she had pressured him afterwards to invite him and Nicola to dinner. He recollected also his shameful feeling of relief at hearing from Christopher’s secretary that Christopher – whom he’d always liked – was in hospital following a serious car accident and would be out of circulation for some time. His heart sank now, but he said, easily enough. ‘Yes of course I remember – and then he had a car crash and they couldn’t make it. And then there was all that publicity because the poor guy killed someone in the accident, and got a prison sentence for it. The City was buzzing with gossip at the time but you may not remember it because you were working in Brussels when it hit the press.’

‘You never told me that!’ Louisa sounded accusing.

‘Didn’t I? Well, you could easily have read about it for yourself in the papers,’ he said mildly. ‘How is he now? Is he okay?’

‘Well, he seems okay apart from a slightly gammy leg – and he’s as charming as ever.’

‘Oh well, give him my regards, then,’ said Adam. ‘I must go now. I’ve got a client coming to see me at two. ‘ ’Bye then, Louisa . . . glad you’re having such a lovely time,’ and Adam put the telephone down rather quickly.

‘That was Adam,’ Louisa explained unnecessarily to Isobel, ‘and guess what? He was telling me about Christopher. Did you and Giles realise the poor guy has been in prison? He killed someone in a car crash and got sent down.’