Maxine turned and smiled at Guy as he entered the room. Since there wasn’t much point in pretending not to have overheard, she said brightly, ‘Only one gin. Oh, and a splash of tonic and two ice cubes. You can deduct them from my wages.’

‘Don’t be silly. Are the children all right?’

‘Bound, gagged and manacled to their beds.’ She beamed. ‘Don’t worry, they can’t escape.’

‘Good.’ He gave her a brief smile. Serena, as she had anticipated, clung lovingly to his arm.

‘Well, we’re off to bed now. Don’t forget to turn everything off before you go up.’

With any luck, thought Maxine, I did that when I mashed six cloves of garlic into the fish pie.

Chapter 15

Janey saw what Maxine meant when she turned up at Trezale House the following morning.

The storms had cleared, Cornwall was bathed in glorious sunshine once more and Serena Charlton was sunning herself topless in the garden. Observing the sheer flawlessness of her long, lean body and deeply envious of such perfect breasts — the pert kind, which wouldn’t dream of sliding down to nestle in each armpit as her own unruly pair invariably did — Janey was glad she didn’t share her sister’s need to compete. When the opposition was this stunning, it was a daunting prospect to say the least.

‘For me?’ said Guy, coming into the kitchen behind her and spotting the cellophane-wrapped bouquet of lemon-yellow roses in her arms. ‘How kind. Nobody’s given me flowers for years.’

He seemed to be in a good mood. Janey, moving out of the way as he reached into the fridge for a bottle of milk, tried not to stare at his naked torso. All he wore was a pair of Levi’s and delicious aftershave. Yet another faultless body, she thought enviously. Such dazzling perfection was almost too much to bear.

‘Maxine ordered them. She’s gone to track down a vase.’

‘Who?’ Rubbing his wet hair with a green towel slung around his neck, he said cryptically,

‘Ah, you mean our in-house saboteur.’

Janey’s heart sank. ‘What’s she done now?’

But Guy merely grinned. ‘I’m sure she’ll tell you. When she does, perhaps you would let her know that it didn’t work.’ When Janey continued to look blank, he added enigmatically, ‘Tell her that for lunch yesterday I had chicken Kiev.’

‘Found one,’ said Maxine, coming into the kitchen with a slender, very elongated smoked-glass vase. ‘It looks like Serena, don’t you think? Except that the vase has a higher IQ. Oh ...

sorry!’ Spotting Guy and not looking the least bit apologetic, she stood the vase on the table. ‘I thought you were still in the shower.’

Guy raised his eyebrows in good-humoured disbelief. Turning to Janey, he said, ‘Do me a favour, will you? Take her out somewhere tonight.’

‘Can’t afford it,’ said Maxine promptly. ‘I’ve got to get the clunking noise in my car sorted out before the wheels fall off. I thought I’d stay in and save my pennies.’

Serena, taking a break from sunbathing, appeared in the kitchen doorway. The gauzy white blouse she had thrown on over her bikini was virtually transparent. Up close, Janey thought with a twinge of envy, she looked even more stunning than she had at a distance. -

‘I’d like a cup of tea,’ she announced with a brief, pointed glance in Maxine’s direction.

‘And this time, maybe I could have Hermesetas in it instead of sugar.’

‘Of course you could,’ Maxine replied smoothly, filling the lookalike vase at the sink and busying herself with the task of flower arranging. ‘The kettle is that round metal object next to the toaster. The teabags are in the cupboard.’

Exchanging yet another glance with Janey, Guy said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. Take her away with you now.’

Maxine, thrilled at the prospect of almost a whole day off, protested, ‘But I can’t afford to go anywhere ...’

‘Here.’ With a look of resignation he reached for his wallet. Peeling off eighty pounds, he handed the notes to Janey. ‘Have fun. On one condition.’

Janey, who didn’t trust conditions, looked wary. ‘What’s that?’

‘You have to promise not to send her back before midnight.’

‘It’s a deal.’ Maxine, cheered by her success, promptly abandoned the flowers in the sink.

Serena, frowning as Janey pocketed the money, said, ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ riposted Maxine, her smile angelic. ‘I’m worth every penny. Just ask Guy ...’

‘Down here on holiday then, girls? Come on, don’t be shy, we’ll buy you a drink. Come and sit down with us.’

At Maxine’s insistence, because ‘you said you wanted to meet some men’, they had set out at seven in the evening on a seafront bar crawl. And there was no doubt about it, thought Janey with a suppressed shudder: they were certainly meeting some men.

‘Don’t let them do it,’ she whispered frantically in Maxine’s ear, at the same time tugging her in the direction of the door. But Maxine, for someone so lacking in bulk, was surprisingly untuggable. She was also flashing the kind of smile that meant they were staying put.

Within seconds, two glasses of house white had materialized and the short one with the beer belly stretching a salmon-pink Lacoste shirt to its limits was leading Janey to the table.

Maxine, brown eyes gleaming as she settled herself into one of the vacant chairs, was already nose to nose with his far better-looking friend.

‘I’m Phil and he’s Ricky,’ said the little fat one, before diving enthusiastically into his pint and downing it in seconds. Having wiped the moustache of froth from his upper lip, he returned his attention to Janey. ‘So how long are you down here for? Where d’you come from? What kind of work d’you do and what’s your name?’

Janey stared at him. Fat Phil roared with laughter. ‘Hey, it’s a joke! Time is money, babe, and why waste time getting to know each other when we could be having fun? That’s what I say!’

‘I couldn’t agree with you more.’ Janey, suppressing a shudder, handed him her untouched glass of wine. ‘And ‘I hope you have lots and lots of fun, I really do. But I’m afraid I have to go now. The babysitter’s expecting me back at nine and she’ll kill me if I’m late—’

‘What is the matter with you?’ Maxine cried indignantly, catching up with her thirty seconds later. ‘You wanted men, ‘I got you men. Janey, you didn’t even give him a chance!’

‘Are you sure he was a man?’ Janey countered, stung by her sister’s insensitivity. ‘He looked seven months pregnant to me. And he had breasts.’

‘But he had a kind face.’

Maxine’s ability to point out redeeming features in the most hopeless of cases never failed to amaze Janey. Provided, of course, that they were somebody else’s hopeless cases and not her own.

‘Maybe.’ It was no good, she wasn’t going to feel guilty. ‘But I can’t pretend to be interested in people. It just isn’t me. Besides, he was a pillock.’

‘You don’t have to fall in love with him.’ Maxine was trying hard to understand but it was an uphill struggle. ‘You aren’t supposed to take men like that seriously. They’re just good to practise on, until the real ones turn up.’

This time Janey laughed because nobody would ever change Maxine. She had her own strategy in life and it would never even occur to her to question it. And why should she want to, anyway? As far as Maxine was concerned, it worked.

‘OK, I’m sorry. What shall we do now?’

Maxine, straight-faced, said, ‘I know. Back to your place, into our woolly dressing gowns and slippers. We’ll watch that nice cookery programme on the telly and take it in turns to make the cocoa. If you’re really good, I’ll teach you how to crochet a tea cosy that looks like a thatched cottage.’

‘Or?’

‘Blow the money on a stupendous meal,’ Maxine replied promptly. ‘I’m starving.’

Janey threw her a look of disbelief. Whilst she’d been working in the shop all afternoon, Maxine had been out on the patio, sunbathing and stuffing herself with food. An entire tub of Häagen Dazs rum and raisin had vanished from the freezer and when she’d gone out to clear up at six o’clock, empty crisp packets and Coke cans had littered the wrought-iron table.

But since it didn’t even occur to Maxine that she shouldn’t be hungry now, she misinterpreted the expression on Janey’s face.

‘Oh, all right! I absolutely promise not to talk to any strange men for the rest of the night.’

Janey doubted whether she was physically capable of such a feat, but it was a noble offer.

Beginning to relax, she said, ‘OK. How about La Campagnola?’

‘Boring,’ declared Maxine. ‘The cricketer took me there last week and it was practically empty. No, I asked Guy about restaurants. He said the best one was in Amory Street. I think it’s called Bruno’s.’

Janey, my gorgeous girl!’ shouted Bruno when he saw her coming through the door, and Maxine’s eyebrows shot up in amazement.

Janey, praying she hadn’t turned red, explained hurriedly, ‘He says that to all the girls.’

‘Hasn’t said it to me,’ murmured Maxine as Bruno made his way across the restaurant to greet them. ‘Hmm, and very nice too. Is he gay?’

‘Is the Pope Jewish?’ countered Bruno, who possessed 20-20 hearing. Embracing Janey and at the same time studying Maxine over her shoulder he murmured, ‘Darling, what have you been telling this poor girl?’

‘She isn’t a poor girl, she’s my sister.’ As if Bruno hadn’t already guessed, Janey thought morosely. Hadn’t she, after all, been complaining to him about Maxine for the past fortnight?

‘Maxine Vaughan,’ said Maxine, gazing with interest at possibly the only man on the planet capable of making Janey blush. He wasn’t what you’d call startlingly good-looking but the eyes were the greenest she’d ever seen and the grin was irrepressible. He was, she decided, one of those men with an indefinable aura of attractiveness about them ... a wonderfully wicked, tantalizing aura of attractiveness.