‘How are all those happy company directors from Orpington, who feed you on jelly and get their jollies when you snap your knicker elastic, how are they possible? And you know very well they are. He was squeezing my arms, you know? Patting my arse… Archie Charlie twigged all right. Went rigid.’ He kissed her knees.

‘So?’

‘So? Canteloupe Road and soggy schnitzels… and stop snivelling.’

Later, in his arms, staring up into the dark, she sighed.

‘Poor Wolf! He’s nice, honest… so gentle.’

‘The gentle people get clobbered in life, didn’t you know?’

‘Yes.’ She traced his lips with her fingers. ‘I do know. And the Film Star, Sylva… how was she?’

He shifted slightly, rubbed the lobe of his ear. ‘Ah, Sylva. She was a bore.’

‘Really? That sexy lady? Fantastic! She bored you?’

He folded his arms round her.

‘Stiff,’ he said.

Chapter Eight

The buzzer on the white telephone beside the bed shattered the stillness of the morning with three sudden, sharp, blasts.

Minerva licked the honey from her fingers, reached for the receiver.

‘Pronto!’ she said, sucking her thumb.

‘Here is Bruna, Principessa, there is a call for you from the Papageno, an Italian lady; shall I say “yes”, or are you still asleep?’

‘I’m awake … I’ll take it, but hold it a minute, Bruna.’ She cradled the receiver between neck and shoulder, scrabbled for a cigarette, lit it, for she was quite incapable of uttering into a telephone without one in her hand. ‘Okay, put her through.’

A click, silence, hissing, Sylva Puglia’s fretful voice. ‘Principessa? It is Sylva …’

‘Sylva!’ said Minerva removing a crumb from her lip with the top of her tongue. ‘You are up early.’

‘I am sorry to disturb you, but it is serious. Very terrible: there has been an accident.’

Minerva sat upright carefully, steadying the tray across her thighs. ‘Accident? Where? To whom?’

‘Wolf Hagel. In the gymnasium. Fencing …’

Minerva’s back was as straight as a plank. ‘What happened?’

‘I am not certain. But it is his face. Dio! From eye to chin.’

‘There’s a doctor?’

‘Sure. Belluno did everything. They’ve taken him to Nice, to the St Roche. But can you come down, now, right away? Grottorosso is asking for you. He is shut in his cabin, he won’t speak … he is distraught. Belluno says please will you come, they have sent a car to the villa.’

‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’ She hung up, lifted the tray from her legs, slid out of bed and stood for a moment in the centre of the room, hands to her face, shaking her head from side to side in wonder. ‘The bastard,’ she said aloud. ‘The shitty, shitty bastard.’

On the terrace at his solitary breakfast Archie saw her, rose in surprise. ‘Minna! Good morning! So early … will you join me?’