‘Nothing,’ Fiona countered. ‘Until you tell me what it was really about.’

Kate kept her temper. ‘I’ve told you. So let’s move on to happier things.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m not lying.’

Stuart squeezed his daughter’s hand. ‘It’s all right. I’m sure Mum’s told you everything.’

Gus, who had done nothing but stare at the table, suddenly got up and darted for his room.

‘See?’ Fiona said. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’

‘I’ve told you everything,’ Kate fired back. ‘It was all about him being innocent, so I obviously have all the old questions bouncing around my head. Was I set up from the start? Was I suckered, tricked, made a fool of? And did I put my family in the most terrible jeopardy as a result?’ She managed to make her voice ring with sincerity because it was the truth, more or less.

Fiona, her face pinched, looked as if she’d come back at her, but ran for the door instead. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go and see if he’s all right,’ she said, with heavy sarcasm.

She stormed out, leaving Kate and Stuart facing each other across the kitchen table. Just like old times, Kate thought. ‘That went well,’ she said.

Stuart headed for the whisky bottle. ‘Want one?’

‘Go on, then.’

Stuart brought the glasses to the table. He smiled at her. ‘Do I, Kate Henderson, detect more than a hint of cigarette smoke?’ he asked.

‘The least of my problems, I’d say.’

‘With the prime minister? Is that like sharing a spliff?’

‘I can think of about a million people I’d rather share a spliff with.’

‘You’ve never had one, so how would you know?’

‘I don’t think either of us needs to be reminded of just how wild and uninhibited I really am.’

Stuart sipped his whisky. ‘I kind of feel like one myself,’ he said eventually.

They waited to see if the kids would return, but the bedroom wing of the long, low farmhouse was shrouded in silence.

‘Shall we go outside?’ Stuart asked.

‘Sounds like an invitation at a school dance.’

‘If you want to look at it like that …’

Kate instantly regretted her flirtation. She didn’t know what had got into her. ‘Come on, then.’

They walked out on to the terrace. Kate led him to the pool and up the gentle slope behind it until they were well out of earshot. They had a view there of the house, the surrounding vineyard and the ancient trees of the valley. ‘It’s practically like daylight,’ Stuart said, peering up at the moon.

‘No pollution, I guess,’ Kate replied. ‘This is what living in the real country is like.’

‘It reminds me of lying out in the highlands in the summer.’

‘Apart from the drastic change in temperature.’

‘You don’t know what you’re missing, you know.’

‘I bloody do.’ Summer holidays in Scotland were an issue on which Kate and Stuart had fallen out early in their marriage. ‘Midges.’

‘The purity of the air! Grandeur. History.’