‘How can you say that?’

‘All right, man! There’s no need to take it out on me! I didn’t nick the fucking stuff!’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just . . . Someone did.’

‘Look, Will, you’ve got to start thinking about yourself. This isn’t the end of the world.’

‘What do you mean? It’s the end of Cissé.’

‘Yeah. Maybe. But you . . . I mean, you could do anything you want. Get a job anywhere. You’re the golden boy.’

Will was about to reply, but something prickled in the back of his throat, and he swallowed hard.

‘I’m going to get a drink of water,’ he said. ‘Do you want anything?’

‘Make it a Scotch and you’re talking.’

‘No,’ said Will, halfway out of the room, ‘just water, I think.’

Victoria lay awake in bed. Leanne had been away all week. Plenty of time to think. At first, she wanted to call Rivelli, just to hear his voice, to beg for forgiveness, to grovel – anything, just to be part of his life again. But she had no idea where he was, who he was with, what he was doing. She had no way of reaching him – as if the last ten years had been a dream.

And so she started wondering about Rivelli, about Cissé, about the stories that were flying around the fashion world. The missing collection – that could only be the work of one man. By Rivelli’s standards, that was nothing, a warning, a slap on the wrist. He was capable of much worse: had done it, many times, she imagined, from hints he had dropped.

It’s about crushing anyone who stands in your way, so that you can have all this.

That night at Le Mûrier, the food, the wine, the bright lights illuminating the blue water of the swimming pool . . . The chill air on her naked breasts, and then the hellish pitter-patter of larvae . . . And Massimo’s horrid, cruel smile.

It’s about cutting your competitor’s throat.

Anything to make a profit, to lower your overheads. She’d heard the rumours often enough to believe that they were true.

‘Darling,’ Adele had said with that infuriating air of authority, ‘you don’t for one minute believe all that stuff about dear old Italian nonnas making up the garments in their cosy little workrooms? He ships it all off to the Far East, pays them a pittance and pockets the difference.’

She suspected everything, and could prove nothing. All she could do was wait, and hope, and think.

‘I’m going to see him today,’ said Will, as they lay side by side in bed. ‘I don’t care what you say. I’ve got to ask him a few questions.’