‘Come on, make a wild guess,’ he coaxed silkily. ‘No? Give up? Okay, I’ll tell you. Eighty-two covers. Eighty-two fucking covers in five days.’

Dulcie swallowed. She didn’t know what a cover was, but all the little hairs on the back of her neck were standing to attention. Kit Berenger was awesome when he was angry. He was positively lethal .. .

‘So give yourself a pat on the back, Miss Lawson. As you say, it’s a tough business. And now, thanks to your hatchet job, it looks as if you’ve singlehandedly closed my cousin’s restaurant down.’

Dulcie was beginning to get seriously on Liza’s nerves. If she didn’t shut up soon she was going to get a squash racket jammed down her throat.

‘Cruel mouths, I just love cruel mouths.’ Dulcie swooned, ticking off each dubious asset on her fingers. ‘Calvin Klein aftershave, that’s my favourite too. Did you recognise that was what he was wearing?’

Liza was too busy smarting furiously and thinking up brilliant ripostes. It was too late now, of course, he’d gone, but there was always the horrible possibility she might one day bump into Kit Berenger again. It didn’t do any harm to keep a few ripostes up your sleeve anyway. Just in case.

‘... and he’s the exact opposite of Patrick, you know. I mean, talk about gallant. Look at the way he leapt to his cousin’s defence. Patrick never leapt to my defence ... in fact he leapt as far as possible in the other direction, that’s how bloody loyal and gallant he was.’

‘It’s the family thing. You upset Patrick’s mother. He was being loyal to her.’

‘Yes, but I’m his wife!’ Dulcie tore open another packet of crisps. ‘Well, I was. Well, still am, I suppose ...’

Liza wondered which would be worse if you were kidnapped and held hostage in a damp cellar for five years. Solitary confinement or being made to share with Dulcie.

‘... anyway, you have to admit he’s gorgeous. Imagine the fantastic-looking children you’d have.

God, I could definitely marry someone like him ...’

Solitary confinement, no question.

‘Whatever happened to being wild and irresponsible and changing your men as often as you change your nightie?’ Liza observed drily. ‘What happened to celebrating a whole new life?’

‘Yeah, but what a way to celebrate,’ sighed Dulcie, well ensconced on Fantasy Island now. ‘And who’d need a nightie?’

Pru had a whole new life and she didn’t much feel like celebrating. In the space of five weeks she had exchanged a perfect home, a loving, faithful husband (ha ha), no money worries and an N-reg Golf Cabriolet for a hideous bedsit, no husband and enough money worries to float the Titanic.

Ironically, she would still have forgiven Phil and stood by him. Together they could have battled their way out of debt. But in the end Pru hadn’t been given that option. You could only stand by a husband who wanted you there at his side, she had belatedly discovered. If he couldn’t bear the sight of you, regarded you with undisguised loathing and contempt and was only interested in the new woman in his life ... well, there didn’t seem much point.

Since a car was a necessity if she was going to find work, Pru had answered a newspaper ad and bought an ancient mini for a hundred pounds. Taxing and insuring it used up the rest of her modest savings. At least they were her savings to use up, Pru reminded herself. When they had bought the house, she had been inwardly hurt by Phil’s insistence that only his name went on the mortgage. Now, thanks to his greed, his debts were his alone.

In fact, Pru discovered, becoming broke in such sudden and spectacular fashion had its weird advantages. When you spent every waking moment in a blind panic, trying desperately to figure out how you were going to cope money-wise, you didn’t have much time left over to feel depressed about the fact your husband had done a bunk.

She hadn’t seen Phil since the day after Dulcie’s party, although she knew where he was living.

With Blanche.

He wasn’t working either. Pru wondered if, desperate for money, he had got caught doing some dodgy deal or other and been sacked.

She wished she could hate Phil. If she did, Pru was sure it would make her feel better.

But how can I hate him, she wondered miserably, when I’d give anything in the world to have him back?

The interview had been a nightmare, no way was she going to be offered the job.

‘Come on, come on,’ Pru urged through gritted teeth as she turned the key in the ignition and prayed for the engine to catch. In the last month she’d had enough practice jump-starting the Mini to go on Mastermind (‘And your specialist subject, Mrs Kastelitz ...?’) but today she was pointing uphill. Anyway, her sadistic interviewers might be smirking out of their office windows, jeering at the moron who was as hopeless with cars as she was on the phone.

They had put a headset on Pru, given her a prompt sheet and instructed her to show them what she could do.

‘Come on! Give us your sales pitch ... show some enthusiasm!’ they had roared at her. ‘No, no, enthusiasm not exhaustion. Right, take a deep breath and try again! Give it all you’ve got! Okay, that’s enough.’ They had rolled their eyes at each other. ‘We’ll let you know.’

From the safety of her car, Pru looked up at the blank windows and mouthed bravely, ‘Well, fuck you.’

The engine, evidently stunned by this act of outrageous rebellion, coughed and spluttered and came to life.

Didn’t want to sell crappy conservatories anyway, Pru decided, determined to stay positive.

Especially not in some frightful office where every time you made a sale you were expected to jump up on your chair and go ‘Yee-haa!’

She made it home ... home! by five o’clock. Pru, used to a glistening, top-of-the range, fully fitted Neff kitchen, fed fifty pence into the ancient meter and made herself a mug of tea.

Clutching a copy of the evening paper in one hand and a couple of digestives in the other, she climbed into her narrow bed to keep warm.

I’ll be all right, thought Pru, astonished to realise that not getting the job hadn’t upset her nearly as much as she’d imagined. In fact it had quite cheered her up. So what if she wasn’t cut out for high-pressure telesales? There were plenty of other things she could do.

Definitely.

It was just a question of figuring out what.

Chapter 12

A fortnight later, at six thirty on a stormy Thursday morning, Pru was on her way to work when a car roared out of nowhere at her, smashing into the passenger side of the Mini and shunting it across the road into a ditch.

The road, a mile or so from Brunton Manor, was narrow and unlit. Pru screamed as the car toppled sideways and the headlights went out, plunging her into pitch darkness. The thick scarf around her neck flopped over her face. A can of Mr Sheen, catapulting off the back seat, hit her on the back of the head.

She wasn’t hurt. When she had scrambled out of the car she realised she didn’t have so much as a bump or a scratch on her. It was a miracle.

It was also raining stair rods.

‘... oh thank God! You’re out ... you’re alive ...’

A man was crashing through the blackness towards her. He slithered into the soggy ditch, colliding with Pru and almost knocking her flat.

He clutched frenziedly at her arms.

‘Are you hurt? Are you okay? The car just skidded—’

‘I’m all right.’ Pru’s teeth were chattering. ‘My car isn’t.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out.’

Pru found herself being hauled none too ceremoniously back up the slope and on to the road.

Bewildered, she wondered if this meant he was a mechanic, about to roll up his sleeves and start sorting it out this minute. But could he? Surely it was going to take more than a couple of spanners and a monkey wrench to get her car out of the ditch?

‘We’ll h-have to phone the p-police,’ she told him, struggling and failing to control her chattering teeth.

‘No need for that. I said I’d deal with everything and I will.’

‘B-but you have to inform them after an ac-ac-accident.’

His voice strained, he replied brusquely, ‘Look, never mind the police for now. It’s Arthur I’m worried about. He needs help, fast.’

Pru was confused. Had Arthur been driving the other car? Oh God, don’t say he was dead .. .

‘Quick, get in.’ The man, evidently frantic with worry, pulled open the passenger door of his car.

Pru shivered and braced herself, but there was no visible corpse. No visible anyone, for that matter.

Fearfully, wondering if she was being kidnapped by a madman, she turned and opened her mouth to say, ‘Where’s Arthur?’

Instead, getting her first glimpse of the man who had crashed into her, she exclaimed, ‘Oh thank goodness, it’s you!’

Eddie Hammond peered in turn at Pru. The light inside the car was dim and she was pretty damp and bedraggled but he recognised her finally as a member of the club. Hopefully this would go in his favour.

‘That’s right. You’re one of Dulcie’s friends.’

‘Pru. Pru Kastelitz.’ Sticking out her icy hand – and feeling idiotic – she said, ‘Phew, I was starting to get worried. Thought you might be a kidnapper.’

Eddie made his way around the front of the car – a gleaming, pillarbox-red Jaguar – and climbed into the driver’s seat. He restarted the engine.

‘Hang on.’ Looking bemused, this time Pru remembered to say it. ‘Where’s Arthur?’

‘On the back seat.’

She swivelled round in alarm.

And saw, half-hidden beneath a rumpled tartan blanket, a golden labrador. Asleep.

‘Arthur’s a dog?’

Grimly Eddie nodded. ‘He’s ill. I have to get him to the vet.’

He was reversing, putting the Jag back on course. Pm, never a tremendous dog lover, said, ‘What about my car?’