When Moira read in the local paper that Will was up to his old tricks again, she felt she had to do something. She’s a nice lady,’ Lucy concluded earnestly. ‘She isn’t motivated by spite. She doesn’t want you to make the same mistake she did, and give up on a perfectly good marriage for the sake of someone like Will.’

Estelle said stubbornly, ‘Maybe she had a perfectly good marriage. I don’t. Look, so what are you saying, that Will’s nothing but a con man?’

‘Not a con man.’ Lucy proceeded with care. ‘Not exactly. I’m sure he does care for you very much, in his own way. But we’ve done a bit of digging around and he does seem to make a habit of persuading lonely women to fall for him, then fairly rapidly losing interest in them. Usually after they’ve spent a bit of money on him, I have to say.’ She paused. ‘According to the receptionist at Carousel Productions, one of last year’s conquests bought him a brand new BMW.’

‘He doesn’t have a BMW.’ Estelle was numb.

‘I know. But it’s how he funded his trip to Australia. Finished with the woman,’ said Lucy with a grimace, ‘and promptly sold the car.’

Estelle swallowed; she felt as if she were trapped on a fairground ride, being spun round and round and not allowed to get off.

‘So I was an easy target, is that it? I’m sorry, I can’t believe this. Will told me he loved me.’

Next to her on the bench, Lucy took a slim notepad from her bag then flipped through it until she found the page she was looking for.

Did he tell you he’d never felt like this about anyone before?’ she said, and Estelle felt the palms of her clasped hands break out in a sweat.

She couldn’t speak.

‘Does he tell you that you’re the one he’s been waiting for, his whole life?’

There was a lump the size of a conker in Estelle’s throat.

‘Does he call you the other half of his soul?’ Lucy persisted, her French-manicured finger moving slowly on down the list. ‘Does he talk about the poem you’ll have engraved on your joint headstone when you’re both gone? Does he have nicknames for each of your elbows? Is he—’

‘Stop!’ Unable to bear it a moment longer, Estelle buried her face in her trembling hands. ‘Oh God,’ she wailed, ‘please, just stop.’

‘ You’re back!’ exclaimed Will. ‘Are you OK? When I saw the food on the floor I thought maybe you’d been kidnapped by aliens.’

He hadn’t been home long himself. The carrier bags of food Estelle had unceremoniously dumped before going with Lucy to the garden square were still there on the kitchen floor. The Belgian chocolate truffle ice cream had melted, seeping like treacle across the tiles. Estelle stood and gazed down at the mess, as well and truly ruined as her own life.

‘Something is wrong.’ Will looked wary, like a guilty man opening his front door to find a policeman on the doorstep.

‘Smile,’ Estelle told him, ‘you’re going to be in the Daily Mail tomorrow.’

‘The Mail. Oh God,-Oliver’ll go ape. He might pull out of the documentary.’

‘Well, it’ll be a real shame if that happens,’ said Estelle. ‘Again.’

Now Will looked like the guilty man discovering that the policeman had proof of his crime.

‘Moira Jonsson saw the piece in the local paper this morning.’ Had it really only been this morning? It felt like months ago.

‘Moira Jonsson.’ Will shook his head. ‘She’s just jealous. We were together for a while, then we broke up. She never got over it.’

‘You were making a film about her husband!’ Her voice rising, Estelle shouted, ‘All the things you told me, you’d already told her. And it’s not just the two of us, either.’

‘Who told you this?’ Will’s eyes narrowed.

‘A journalist.’

‘Oh, come on, now you’re being naive. They’ll make up anything

‘ Not this time,’ yelled Estelle. ‘Apparently there are quite a few older married women around.

whose elbows have nicknames!’

Trapped, Will said, ‘So? It’s not against the law.’

‘Yesterday,’ Estelle said shakily, ‘you brought a bag of travel brochures back here. We spent half the evening talking about going away on holiday. You kept saying you’d love to go to the Caribbean, remember? Because you’d never been there before.’

From the look on Will’s face, he knew what was coming next. ‘OK, so maybe I have. Once.’

Sulkily he said, ‘But it wasn’t much of a holiday, let me tell you, with Moira clinging to me like a leech the whole time.’

‘She probably felt she was entitled to be clingy, seeing as she paid for the entire trip. Tell me,’ said Estelle, ‘is it all a deliberate ploy? Do you do it to spice up your documentaries, make them more interesting for the viewers?’

‘No.’

Estelle had already guessed as much. After all, Magnus Jonsson had pulled out of filming; his documentary had ended up not getting made.

‘So it’s just that we’re available, is it? Lonely, neglected wives, grateful for the attention. Oops, I almost forgot –lonely, neglected, wealthy women.’

Giving it one last go, Will said desperately, ‘It isn’t like that. I’d never sleep with someone unless I cared about them. The money isn’t important.’

‘Nice try,’ said Estelle. ‘Very convincing.’ Cuttingly she added, ‘But I’m still not going to buy you a brand new BMW.’

His eyes flickered with guilt and she knew it was all over.

‘Where are you going?’ said Will, as she stalked past him.

Reaching the hallway, Estelle glimpsed her reflection in the mirror on the wall – the mirror that she had bought and hung there yesterday to brighten up the narrow space. She looked exactly what she was: a foolish 45-year-old woman who should have known better and was now living to regret it.

‘To pack my things,’ she told Will, discovering that she didn’t even have the energy to cry. ‘After that, I don’t know.’

Chapter 44

‘I don’t know what to do any more,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t even know what to think. I just ... oh God, I don’t know .. . give up.’

‘It’s like the world’s gone mad,’ Nuala suggested helpfully. Using the tongs to transfer a cherry Danish from the glass cabinet to a paper bag, she added, ‘Like waking up and looking out of your window and seeing that the grass is purple.’

Maddy, who was about to set off with the morning’s deliveries, said, ‘Have you spoken to Estelle this morning?’

‘Like wildebeest stampeding down Main Street,’ said Nuala.

‘She hasn’t been in touch.’ Kate shook her head helplessly. ‘It’s just unbelievable. My mother’s run off with a toy-boy who’s only out for what he can get. My father’s at the hospital with his ex-mistress.

They have a son together, I’ve got a half-brother I never knew I had, and he doesn’t even know who his father is because he’s lying there in a coma.’

‘Orang-utans swinging from the trees, the Taj Mahal where the war memorial used to be,’ said Nuala. ‘Flying saucers whizzing through the sky.’

‘Just ignore her,’ said Maddy.

‘Sorry. That’ll be eighty pence.’ Nuala handed the bag to Kate. ‘But wouldn’t it be weird if that-did happen?’

Maddy rolled her eyes in despair. ‘And I have to live with her,’ she told Kate.

‘What about Sophie?’ Along with the rest of the town, Kate knew that Sophie had been prescribed a course of antibiotics as a precautionary measure. ‘Is she OK?’

Maddy smiled, touched by her concern. ‘She’s absolutely fine.’

Marcella turned up as Kate was leaving. Marcella had a ten o’clock appointment at the hospital’s antenatal unit and she was hitching a lift into Bath with Maddy.

‘Got everything?’ said Marcella as Maddy loaded the cool-boxes into the car along with a bag containing clean clothes for Juliet.

‘I’ve got everything. Have you got everything?’

Smugly, Marcella held up her pink raffia basket. ‘Antenatal notes. Spare knickers. Wee sample.

What more could a woman need?’

The basket was heavier than that. Pulling it open and surveying the contents, Maddy said,

‘Pickled gherkins, a pomegranate, two orange Kit Kats and a tube of tomato puree, by the look of it.’

‘Don’t curl your lip at me like that,’ Marcella protested. ‘I have a blood sugar level to think of. It doesn’t do to get peckish.’

Having dropped Marcella off first, Maddy parked the car and made her way over to the intensive therapy unit. There was a family, distraught and sobbing, in the waiting room. When Juliet emerged from the unit, Maddy hugged her hard, then said, ‘Shall we go outside?’

They found a bench in a patch of sunlight between two buildings. Shaking her head, Juliet said wonderingly, ‘I’d almost forgotten how it feels to be in the sun.’

She looked exhausted.

Maddy said, ‘How’s Tiff?’

‘Still alive. Still in a coma. They did another brain scan yesterday.’ From somewhere, Juliet dredged up a smile. ‘Thank Sophie for the cards, will you? They’re beautiful. How is she?’

‘Good. Missing Tiff.’ Maddy hated having to ask, but it was only fair they should know. ‘Has Oliver seen the paper this morning?’

‘The Mail? Yes. Poor Oliver.’ Juliet shook her head. ‘Poor Estelle too. What a hideous mess.’

Fiddling with her car keys, Maddy said, ‘I’m actually feeling sorry for Kate. And I never thought I’d hear myself saying that.’

‘I feel like it’s all my fault.’ There was anguish in Juliet’s eyes. ‘Maybe Tiff being ill is my punishment for getting involved with Oliver in the first place.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Maddy. ‘You know it isn’t.’