‘You can’t blame Sophy because it turns out, doesn’t it, that Colin Watts didn’t rape Sophy at all. Did he, Rose?’ Lulu’s not playing dumb any more. Her little white teeth are almost bared in a snarl, like a fox. ‘He was just taking the rap for Jesse Marlon, wasn’t he?’

Mimi turns to look at me. I shrug, and pick up Tatler, which I’ve just spotted has a coverline saying ‘Five Go Mad in Dorset, Camilla Long Makes Hay with Cath Cobb’. I find the contents page, and then turn to it slowly. ‘Look, everyone, there’s a piece about Cath,’ I say. ‘Lovely photos of the herb garden.’

I read the piece in its entirety, not taking all of it in. Basically, it was one of those lavishly illustrated articles about someone richer and nicer and with better taste than everyone else designed to make the reader feel poor and diminished in her own life. There is a particularly fetching picture of Cath wearing a ballgown in the chicken coop and holding a bantam, underneath the headline, ‘Poultry in Motion’.

I lay the magazine down, and pick up my water glass. Mimi picks it up, chuckling with pleasure over a piece entitled, ‘Throaty, Sexy, and utterly Husky – the return of the Puffa jacket.’

‘Lulu, I make a point of never listening to village gossip,’ I say. ‘So I honestly haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, I’m afraid. I think the whole rape story has become a little overblown, from what I gather. And anyway,’ I continue, putting in the boot, ‘you’d better be a tiny bit careful when it comes to your stepson. After all, in a few years, you’ll be down on your knees asking him whether little Fred can have a barn and whether you can live in the stable cottage, so I’d tread carefully, if I were you.’

PART THREE

Saturday 9 May, 10.30 a.m.
Mimi

So we walk, despite my high heels, to the grey-stone Norman church, set on a hill, the white and red Cross of St George flying from the steeple. Parking anywhere near it today would have been impossible. I am a little out of breath, and my feet hurt.