How many times had Rosalind relived this moment? Caro would bet it was hundreds, more, over the years.

Some moments in time never left you.

‘He told me that I was his soul mate. That I’d always be part of his life. But that he couldn’t marry me.’

‘Bastard,’ Caro muttered, not entirely under her breath.

‘Yes. But I loved him. Despite everything.’ Rosalind gave a small shrug. ‘He begged me not to make a fuss, or a scandal. Not just for himself. For the family reputation. For the movies we were making, too. After all, who would cast me again if I had a reputation for causing trouble on set.’ The bitter edge in her voice was clear. Maybe this had been a viable argument back in the early eighties, but it sucked now. And still, Caro could imagine men using it. ‘I had my reputation to think of; the Dahlia movies were winding down, but Hugh was still an influential figure, and had struck up a great friendship with the director. I wanted more work, and that meant making sure I was someone that others would want to work with.’

‘That’s just …’ Posy shook her head in apparent disbelief. But, thinking about what Caro knew of Posy’s career – the rise, the fall, the scandal and the disappearance – she wondered if the problem was actually that Posy believed it all too well.

Rosalind had taken the high road that Caro herself had been unable to walk. And what had it gained her? A thirty-year lie of a love affair.

And a thriving career, Caro supposed. A place as a National Treasure.

Was this really how it worked? Women could have their place at the table as long as they suppressed their rage and their pain?

Well. That just wasn’t good enough.

‘Seems to me that Hugh got everything he wanted out of this deal,’ Caro said.

‘Except he did have to spend the rest of his life married to Isobel,’ Posy pointed out, with a wicked smile. ‘Surely all those perfect twin-sets and pearls must get old pretty soon?’

‘Perhaps. That’s my confessions done, anyway.’ Rosalind straightened her spine and looked up, her hands still folded in her lap. ‘So. We know each other’s secrets now. Whose do we want to find out next?’

Chapter Nineteen

Dahlia slammed her hands down on his desk and stared at him hard across the wooden surface. ‘You’ve arrested the wrong person.’

‘He confessed,’ Johnnie pointed out, mildly.

Dahlia shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m right and he’s wrong. Trust me on this.’

The worst part, Johnnie thought, as he pulled out the files to go through them again, was that he did.

Dahlia Lively in To Catch A Fly

By Lettice Davenport, 1970