‘In a few weeks?’

‘I don’t know, Nik. Maybe it started on that exercise. Maybe it was someone he had known before. It’s possibly why he told me when he did.’

‘Oh, Mum.’

‘I felt as if everything might slide from under us. Fergus was wonderful; always there…just to listen. Then, one day I went into Singapore to buy some material for a dress for a dinner night. I saw this amazingly wonderful red silk and I thought, I’ll show him. David, I mean. I had it made up into the most daring dress I’d ever worn. And I made a provocative entrance. I was sick of being sad; I wanted to be happy and young again. I danced all night, especially with Fergus, and I was excited by the sense of power I suddenly had in that daring red dress. A terrific sense of being sexually attractive and the centre of attention.

‘David had been hugely amused by my dramatic entrance. I certainly got his attention. But I knew that night that soon I was going to sleep with Fergus. I wanted to…I suppose I was beginning to fall in love too.’

‘I remember that dress, Mum. You looked amazing. I remember it.’

‘Do you, darling?’ Fleur was surprised.

‘What happened?’

‘Fergus was kissing me on the dance floor and David saw us. We looked up and there he was. All three of us just stood rooted without saying a thing. It was an awful moment. David was ashen. He looked at me in total disbelief. He was so sure I single-mindedly adored him enough not to do anything. He turned and went out through French windows into the Mess garden and I went after him. It was as if Fergus and I had stabbed him in the back.

‘He kept shouting and asking me how long it had being going on. I tried to tell him I had not slept with Fergus but he wouldn’t listen and I saw that he felt impotent, powerless, because there was nothing he could say or do to put himself in the right.

‘Suddenly he went quiet and gave this deprecating, bitter little laugh. He nodded to himself and looked down at me and said quietly, “I think it’s called poetic justice, darling. If I wasn’t married to you I couldn’t wish for a greater guy for you than Fergus…my old friend Fergus…”

‘I realised that he thought I was going to leave him for Fergus. He must have seen me and his beloved twins slipping from his grasp. He turned and started walking away from me and I started to run after him and I was screaming, “I will never leave you…I will never leave you,” over and over, but he wasn’t listening any more, he was just walking away from me as fast as he could. He didn’t come home that night and the next day he went flying. I never saw him alive again. I never ever saw him again.’