The judge leant forward quickly. ‘The defendant is not here to question the prosecuting barrister,’ she said seeing Mr Lee’s face, but quite gently.

‘Mr Blue what do you suggest happened to Simone Taylor?’ said Mr Lee in a sarcastic, angry voice.

‘I don’t know!’ repeated Terence in frustration and he turned again to Simone Taylor. ‘What happened Simone?’ he said and his face was puzzled as he stared at her. ‘You know it wasn’t me.’ The woman in the fur coat and the dark glasses stared at him silently.

‘No further questions,’ said Mr Lee.

‘I am adjourning the court until 10 am tomorrow morning,’ said the judge.

Simone Taylor was the first to leave the courtroom.

Terence’s shoulders were slightly hunched, but at least Nicky will not be brought to trial now, they cannot charge her now, they will understand now, as he was escorted back along the courtroom and through the padded door, past the concrete stairs and the grilled liftwell.

*

Anthony Bonham, alone in his dressing room at Stratford-upon-Avon while the young actor playing Hamlet agonised over the tannoy what a rogue and peasant slave he was, listened to a portable radio, read the rather inadequate court reports in the local evening newspaper, could not believe his eyes and his ears.

*

Molly McKenzie, reading the late edition of the Evening Standard in her empty Clapham house and then watching the court report on the television news, was totally bewildered; kept asking herself why Pauline O’Brien – of all people – would stand up in a court of law and repeat what Molly had told her in the Chiswick garden, a lifetime ago, when the sun shone. Pauline had advised her not to do such a thing, had become helpless with laughter at the idea. What had happened? Thought also of poor, brilliant Nicky Abbott who had, unbeknown to them all, lived most of her life in a mental hospital.

*

Frances Kitson also watched the television news alone in her small flat in her dressing gown and with wet red hair. She was called at 5.30 next morning, to begin the first of her Triumph Telephone commercials. She thought again of the days when the world was waiting for them all so brightly, when they stalked the country with their make-up boxes under their confident arms, the new young eager class of ’59. ‘Poor Nicky,’ she said suddenly, ‘for such hopes and talent to end like that.’ And then, with a sudden sob in her throat, the way it came upon her when she thought she was all right at last, ‘Poor, poor Emmy.’

*

Harry Donaldson, on location in Dorset, watched the news on the BBC, saw Terence walking heavily to a taxi. ‘So there it all is, at last,’ he said, aloud in his hotel room. There was no mention at all of Juliet or himself, of the key to everything that had happened.

Terence Blue had chosen not to tell the full story.

*