Not here, not now! I needed to be calm. Do what Sean sometimes gently suggested: let things go more often, bend a little, smile and shake my head and just move on. He would joke about it sometimes, asking me, What’s the view like up there on your high horse, Kate? The irony of that seemed particularly dark considering the evidence I had discovered of his affair.

‘The truth,’ Sean muttered into his wine, ‘the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’

There was another awkward silence.

Jennifer grabbed her fork and tinged it loudly against the side of her glass. ‘How about we have a toast?’ she said brightly, filling the glasses nearest to her with more of the smooth local red wine. ‘As it’s our first night here.’

There was a general murmur of agreement, glasses being raised. I held my own glass up, forcing my mouth into a smile.

‘To Rowan,’ Jennifer said. ‘For making it possible for all of us to stay in this wonderful place, and bringing us all together.’

All the adults clinked glasses and drank.

‘So, Rowan,’ Jennifer said briskly, ‘I hear great news could be on the way for your company?’

‘Fingers crossed,’ Rowan said.

‘Is it happening, then? It’s really going to go ahead?’

Rowan nodded slowly, smiling like a proud parent.

‘All the signs are looking good at the moment.’

Her company specialised in ethical PR – total transparency and commitment to the very highest ethical standards, both in her own operation and the people she worked for. It set her apart from some of the competition and had won her an impressive roster of clients over the last ten years, principally tech and social media companies keen to avoid the stigma of privacy breaches and fake news that had afflicted Facebook and others. So much so that she had caught the attention of a global leader in the ethical field, a US-based company, which was proposing a buyout. As founding partner and CEO, Rowan stood to become very wealthy from the move.

‘Hopefully it should go through in the next month or so,’ she added.

Russ returned from another cigarette break. Even though the cigarette was out, a fug of stale smoke came with him as he sat down next to me at the table, opposite his wife, folding his long frame into the wicker chair.

‘As long as you can convince them you’re absolutely squeaky clean, right, darling?’

It was virtually the first time I’d heard him speak since his outburst at Odette. His voice was loud, with a tone of forced joviality that was impossible to miss. I watched as Rowan turned her gaze on her husband, something in her eyes I couldn’t place, a slight narrowing of the eyes. As if they’d had this conversation before.

‘The due diligence has been very thorough,’ she said. ‘No stone unturned.’