If she’d been having a lot of expensive therapy, Kate thought, it was clearly working, since there was no doubt she exuded a sense of serenity. Perhaps it was the firm decision to move on from him, a resonance not lost on Kate.

‘I came from a broken home with a philandering father and a mother who was determined not to see what was as plain as day to everyone else who knew us. But …’ she sighed, the karma beginning to crack ‘… you don’t need me to go into all that. So … yes, I guess I did know Ian was having affairs. Before we married, I convinced myself it was just a guy sowing his wild oats and it would all change once we’d exchanged our vows. And after our wedding, I would have done anything and everything to keep us together, even if it meant the pain of denying the evidence before my eyes.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Julie blurted out. ‘Really, I’m sorry.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ Celia said kindly. ‘If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else – as it was in other times and places. The bigger question is what kind of fool puts up with it?’

Kate sighed inwardly. It reminded you how little we really know of others. Who would have guessed this attractive woman, who had built such an impressive business empire, would be travelling through life with so much psychological baggage?

But, then, wouldn’t many have said the same about her?

‘We understand your assessment of your husband’s potential for treachery, Mrs Granger,’ Callum interjected smoothly, ‘and will certainly take account of it, but could we just ask you to focus on that posting to New York for a moment?’

Kate glanced at her new recruit, quietly impressed at the way he had steered the conversation back to safer ground.

‘Of course. What would you like to know?’

‘In retrospect, was there anything unusual about it? Anything at all you might think worthy of note?’

Celia considered this for a long time. She turned to the window and gazed out over the clipped stubble towards the wooded copse in the valley below. ‘I suppose I would go through a pattern of acceptance and denial,’ she said. ‘About his affairs, I mean. I’d become suspicious and, for a while, jealousy would consume me, but then I would start to block it out until I could more or less convince myself it wasn’t happening.’ She smiled at Julie once more and, this time, looked on the point of tears. In fact, they both did. ‘Our time in New York was particularly painful. We were newly married, so this was the first time the reality dawned on me that a wedding had not forced a leopard to change his spots.’

‘He had an affair while you were there?’

‘Yes, I think so. I mean, yes, definitely. A Czech girl. He played tennis with her.’

‘A diplomat?’

‘I doubt it. One of the women Ian worked with, whom I liked, later implied she was Czech intelligence.’