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messages, but it’s been so hectic. Inigo’s off to New York soon to set up his new show, and someone’s leaked the title, which is bad news.’
    â€˜What is the title of his show?’ Hedley asks, glad that Laura cannot see that he has been reduced to making telephone calls from the airing cupboard in order to have privacy from the tyranny of Tamsin his teenage step-daughter.
    Laura sighs. ‘Hedley, honestly! What did I just say? I’m not supposed to tell you or anyone else anything about it.’
    â€˜Well, it doesn’t matter now because it’s already been leaked,’ Hedley points out.
    Laura laughs capitulation. ‘All right, I’ll tell you. It’s called
Death Threat
, and the central image is the shadow of a giant rolling pin towering over a tiny pastry-cutter-sized Möbius strip. It was meant to have an embargo on it until the middle of March, as the show doesn’t launch until April—’ She breaks off, arrested by the muffled noises from Hedley’s end. ‘You sound very peculiar. Where are you?’
    Her brother, trying to arrange himself for comfort as well as security on the second from bottom shelf, answers reluctantly, ‘I’m in the airing cupboard.’ He shifts a sprigged eiderdown from behind him and breathes, ‘Aah, that’s better. Isn’t it time Inigo moved on from Möbius strips, or should the plural be Möbii? I shall look it up.’ Hedley is always ready to be distracted by a bit of research. Laura cuts in, recognising the signs of her brother drifting away on a new tide of thought.
    â€˜You can’t. It isn’t Latin, remember? It’s a German called August Ferdinand Möbius.’ Laura’s voice gathers exasperation. ‘You know that, Hedley, you’ve always known that – and why are you in the airing cupboard anyway?’
    Fred, bored by what he can see is going to be an extended interruption to his television viewing, hurls a cushion at Dolly to liven things up. His twin shrieks as the blue nail polish she has been applying in squiggles on a base coat of pink skids across her hand and gloops onto her French exercise book.
    â€˜Fred you stupid creep, don’t bloody do that,’ she howls.
    Laura flails her hands, screwing up her eyes into menacing slits, hoping to mutely indicate terrible punishments if they don’t start behaving at once. Fred and Dolly ignore her and hurl themselves intoa full-scale cushion bashing session. Laura can hardly hear her brother, and isn’t listening anyway, as her ears are straining to discover whether Inigo has heard the chaos from his cocoon of peace in the basement with the computer.
    â€˜â€¦ and I thought this would be the best place to come to talk to you,’ her brother is saying. ‘Actually, it’s quite nice in here. Do you remember, we used to play Sardines here when we were young? I wish children now did that kind of thing. All Tamsin seems to want to do is stare at the television or talk on the telephone. I’d still rather play Sardines, wouldn’t you?’ Hedley sounds happier and more relaxed than he has done for weeks; hiding in the airing cupboard must be a good thing.
    â€˜How is Tamsin?’ Laura asks, able to concentrate better now she has dragged the telephone, yanking the cord, out of the sitting room and into the hall away from the muffled thuds and squeals of the fight.
    Hedley’s voice wobbles with suppressed frustration. ‘I cannot believe that parenting can ever be as difficult as my job of step-parenting,’ he says.
    Laura is silent, remembering the outraged agony of her brother when his wife Sarah told him she was leaving. She had met someone else. ‘And it’s not even a man, it’s a female gym instructor,’ Hedleyhad bellowed, adding in disbelief, ‘And they’ve taken Tamsin.’
    A year later though, Tamsin was back, with teenage hormones