Kate’s call to Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith came while he was shopping in the Notting Hill Farmers’ Market. His day had been carefully planned and he was in the excellent spirits of a man who could look forward to a well-earned rest day which presaged more energetic pleasure than rest. He had promised to cook lunch for his parents in the kitchen of their South Kensington home, would later spend the afternoon in bed with Beverley in his Shepherd’s Bush flat, and planned to end a perfect mixture of filial duty and pleasure by taking her to see the new film at the Curzon. The day would also be for him a private celebration of his recent reinstatement as Beverley’s boyfriend. The ubiquitous word slightly irritated him, but it seemed inappropriate to describe her as his lover, which to his mind suggested a greater degree of commitment.

Beverley was an actor—she insisted that she should not be described as an actress—and was making a career for herself on television. She had from the start made it clear where her priority lay. She liked variety in her boyfriends but was as intolerant of promiscuity as any fundamentalist preacher. Her sex life was a strictly time-enforced procession of single affairs, few, as she was considerate enough to inform Benton, with any hope of lasting for more than six months. Despite the slenderness of her neat, tough little body, she loved food, and he knew that part of his attraction had been the meals, either in carefully chosen restaurants which he could ill afford or, as she preferred, cooked by him at home. This lunch, to which she had been invited, was planned in part to remind her what she had been missing.