‘And, to think of all those jolly years we had together – they were jolly, on the whole – and I never knew I was his third wife, not his second. I knew Betty Bailey was just an aberration and I thought of myself as his only wife – you know, his real wife. Until the appalling Iona Spring came along of course. And so when he told me, I felt so strange. As if the past had got muddled somehow. I mean he’s always been such – well until now I’ve always thought him such a simple person, someone you could see through – I thought I knew him so well, I could read him like a book. After all there’s not that much to know about Terence, once you get out of bed, except that he’s got a sort of Welsh stubbornness. But there was this other secret Terence underneath, all that time, it quite shook me Pauly, to be honest. And now you tell me he’s impotent for God’s sake!’ Elvira stared out again at the rain and was silent.

Pauline waited.

‘Stu and I are desperately worried about the rape case, he seems not to understand the seriousness of it somehow. He’s got this ridiculous logic, says he’s told his defence he won’t go into the witness box. “There’s no need,” he kept saying, “I didn’t do it and nobody can prove that I did. It offends me to be accused of rape, and I don’t see why I should go into the witness box and be in all the newspapers giving a kind of credence to her story, I won’t do it.” God Pauly, the courts don’t work like that, I know how the courts work, it’s my business to know, I’m a crime-writer for God’s sake. But the only thing he’s agreed to is that his counsel can call someone to say how Simone used to be crazy about him, that maybe this is all a figment of her imagination – though how you get bruises all over your body from a figment of your imagination is beyond me.’

‘You don’t think at all –’ Pauline paused, choosing the words carefully ‘– you don’t think – it – might have happened. That perhaps he was drunk?’

Elvira looked at Pauline. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said coldly.

‘Well I’m going to talk to him,’ said Pauline firmly, ‘and put my plan to him, if you’ll tell me where he is?’