‘Dinners in Downing Street before the end of the decade,’ says Isabel, to the murmured approval of the company.

‘Steady on,’ Ralph coughs. ‘It’s one thing to have the support of the party, Isabel, but one needs the support of the country – and that’s always more problematic.’

‘Well, as long as someone unseats that dreadful Welshman, I suppose I shall be happy for now,’ Isabel counters.

They all agree to that. Even Harriet thinks that Lloyd George is insufferable.

‘I’ll miss your articles, Harriet,’ Mary says, not looking up from her plate as she gingerly attempts to extract a bone from the turbot. ‘In the Kensington Gazette, I mean. Of course, you’ll stop writing when you marry, but it’s a pity, because I always guess when it’s you writing the women’s page, and I like to say that I know you. You have a certain turn of phrase. It’s different, I think, from the way the men write.’ She speaks in one long, flat-vowelled breath. ‘They really should put your name above your articles, though, I think.’

‘You read my pieces?’ Harriet stares at her.

‘Why yes, I do.’ Mary presses the deboned piece of fish against her fork with her knife and looks up. ‘I rather enjoy the Gazette. I find it more straightforward than the Times, and it has local news, of course. You wrote about the girl thief, the other day, didn’t you? Tuesday’s edition, I believe it was. It had to be you. Something about the description of her – “Ruby Mills, the Jewel of the Borough” – and only a woman would know who made her coat. A Poiret, you said, wasn’t it?’ She puts the fish into her mouth.

Harriet sits back in her seat, flushing. Someone has read her article. Mr Pickford declined to give her the byline, of course, but someone has recognised it as hers, simply from the style of her writing.

‘I said I thought it was a copy.’ She is aware of her mother’s icy disapproval from the end of the table. ‘It might really have been a Poiret, of course. The girl has a habit of taking coats – as well as jewellery.’

‘You wrote about Ruby Mills?’ Inspector MacKenzie asks in a very precise voice.

‘Yes.’

He glares accusingly at his wife across the table. ‘You didn’t show me this. You didn’t tell me she’d written about Ruby Mills.’

A troubled look crosses Mary’s face. She has said something wrong, committed some sort of faux pas, but she doesn’t know what it is.

‘I didn’t know… You don’t always… Well, you’re not always interested in the Gazette, are you? A silly local paper, isn’t it? And… I think I assumed that you might know all about Ruby Mills and you wouldn’t need Harriet to tell you about her.’