Dolly smiled, remembering how she’d cheered when she’d received Peggy’s letter telling her about it. She hadn’t felt the least bit sorry for Doris, who, to her mind, deserved being taken down a peg or three. Doris was rude, overbearing and utterly scathing of Peggy’s home and family, talking to Ron as if he was a servant and deriding all the good Peggy had done for those poor girls she’d taken in as the war had progressed.

It was little wonder that Peggy was reluctant to approach her sister about what she’d seen that morning, and Dolly had known instinctively that if this tangle of gossip was to be unravelled, she was best placed to do it. Although the thought of having to be polite to Doris made her grit her teeth.

She looked at her watch and decided she’d wasted enough time sitting here. Danuta would wonder where she’d got to, and Pauline would, no doubt, accuse her of neglect if she didn’t show her face soon.

She checked her make-up in the rear-view mirror, repaired her lipstick and climbed out of the car. Knowing how much store Doris set by appearances, she was glad she was wearing her beautiful new Norman Hartnell two-piece. She draped the mink stole loosely about her shoulders to ward off the evening chill, gathered up her Chanel handbag and walked towards Doris’s house.

Her high heels tapped on the uneven pavement, and then crunched over the freshly raked gravelled driveway. She noted there was fresh paint on the windows and doors, and spring flowers added a blaze of colour in the weed-free beds which had been sharply cut from the manicured lawn. Doris clearly wasn’t about to permit a little thing like a world war to disrupt her from keeping up appearances.

Having rapped the knocker twice, Dolly stood back and waited. She could hear voices coming from the open windows upstairs and guessed it was the factory girls Doris had been forced to take in as evacuees, and who, according to Peggy and Ivy, she treated no better than poor skivvies. There were so many things about Doris that riled Dolly, that she began to wonder why she’d come. A telephone call would have sufficed – but then seeing the whites of her eyes was far more informative.

She was about to knock again when the door opened to reveal an immaculately turned-out Doris in twinset and pearls and a tailored tweed skirt. Glossy leather shoes and nylon stockings completed the look, and Dolly wondered how she’d managed to get hold of the nylons without chatting up some American.

‘My dear Dolly,’ Doris said warmly. ‘What a lovely surprise. Do come in. I was just about to have my evening sherry.’