Mags hadn’t a clue what Montel meant. Her mind was screaming at her. Hatred for Betsy was pounding through her veins. ‘I need to be alone. I have to think. This changes everything – everything.’

‘Naw, Mags, please don’t let it. I’m sorry. So sorry. Please forgive me. Ple-e-e-ase.’

‘Betsy, I know it iz going to be hard to do, but you need to give Mags time. Go inside and go to bed. Be with your children. Come on, it iz that I will help you. Mags, wait for me. We will go for a walk. I can help you, I know thiz.’

Mags didn’t answer, but neither did she move.

When Montel came out of the hotel, Mags was still sitting on the wall outside. She allowed Montel to take her arm. Her legs felt weak, but he steadied her. ‘Let uz walk.’

Leaning on him, she let him steer her towards the park. Once inside, they sat down on a bench. As it was still light, there were a few people about, taking in the balmy August evening air.

‘Mags, I also am shocked at what I heard, but not surprised. You said yourself that Harold iz a magnet to women. Look how you fell for him, and how he haz Susan in his clutches. Iz it not pozzible, then, that he did the same zing to Betsy? Then, in a moment of weakness, when she didn’t think she would be found out, she succumbed, just as you and Susan did. Her reaction when he called her “scum” and threw coins at her, az if she was a prostitute, waz unthinking. If she had thought other than to get her own back and disgrace Harold, she wouldn’t have done it. Look how she haz suffered, for that one moment of wanting revenge. In my country we would call thiz a crime of passion.’

Mags listened, and a lot of what Montel said did get through to her. She knew Harold. Knew what he was capable of; and yes, he had made her do things she would never dream of doing. Hadn’t she lain with him before they were wed? And Susan – a nice girl, an innocent, naive girl who wanted nothing other than a job as a maid in his mother’s house – was seduced by Harold, only somehow she got into his blood and he could not give her up. Nor she him. Look at how Harold beats Susan and refuses to let her have Sybil – their child – with her, and yet she is still with him.

‘But I, and so many other people, suffered so much.’

‘Harold waz out to make you suffer. He would have found a way to break you. If not that night, az you had guests, then another time. Maybe he waz even priming Betsy for the purpose; only, as she said, that night she had to do duties she didn’t usually do, and so Harold unexpectedly had a chance to get what he wanted. But it wasn’t the right time, so he had to get rid of her – and quick. Hiz mistake was in insulting Betsy. And so she haz become zee wicked one, zee cause of everything; and yet zee real cause iz one person, and one person only. Betsy iz just another of Harold’s victims.’