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note on the subject to herself: "Remember LOCK UP DIARY' and "LOCK THIS UP. No one sees this. Not Bur, definitely not Bur. (And not creepy Nanny either.)'
    There had been something between Burgo Smyth and Franklyn Faber which had never come out, either in court or in the press after Faber's disappearance. It was something which could perhaps have ruined Burgo, condemned him, in his own words, to political death. Lady Imogen knew what this was, or at least the outlines of it. The references were fairly constant if elliptical, not deliberately so, but because Imogen Swain herself knew what she meant and saw no need to amplify it. The crucial Diary would of course be the one following and Jemima needed to consult that before she made up her mind about anything.
    Rosenkavalierwas turning away from post-coital sadness to the light-hearted mission of the young Oktavian, bearing a rose. The Chardonnay was not only seriously depleted, but getting warm. Time for a long, long bath, the greatest pleasure currently available to her. She would then play the video of her programme on the Faber Secrets Case, accompanied by the remnant of smoked salmon she had, thank heaven, spied at the back of the fridge.
    In the event Jemima read the new Barbara Vine in her bath till even the fourth lot of hot water had grown cold. She ate the smoked salmon and finished off the Chardonnay, rechilled with lumps of ice, among the many lacy white pillows of her huge low bed. The rich foxy smell of the lilies was perhaps responsible for dreams in which someone called Ned Silver but looking like Franklyn Faber came calling on her in the middle of the night.
    "Why have you changed?" asked Jemima.
    "After thirty years, we've all changed," was the reply which even in her dreams struck Jemima as odd, although she could not precisely understand why. Then Ned-as-Franklyn leant towards her.
    She was awakened by a terrible screaming sound, a cry, someone was being killed outside her door ... Moments later Jemima realised it was her new personal fax machine which Cherry had insisted on having installed as a business necessity for JS Productions. ("So we're always in touch'.) But it was not Cherry who was keeping in touch so early in the morning. Groggily, but very happily, Jemima read an amorous message from Ned which must have scorched the hotel paper when it was written. In the early sixties Burgo Smyth had sent his love letters overnight by the late post from the House of Commons. There were references to them in the Diary: "Letter from Bur: oh, bliss'. In the nineties Ned Silver faxed his love letters on the crested writing paper of a foreign hotel.
    After a while, still keeping the fax like a talisman in her robe pocket, Jemima made a mug of coffee. To bring herself to life, she turned on breakfast TV but without the sound. She was still gazing at the set unfocusedly when a picture of someone dressed as Titania at a fancy dress ball filled the screen.
    "My God, its her. Lady Imogen Swain. As she was. Beautiful' Jemima's reactions sharpened. Why on earth... By the time she had enlarged the sound, she heard only the words 'in Hippodrome Square, West London'. The image of Titania vanished.
    Jemima switched channels. This time she got a picture of Hippodrome Square itself, an ambulance, and something body-shaped being carried into it, which looked very dead indeed, under a black cloth, no face visible. Jemima found she was shaking and her coffee began to spill. In front of her, the small blue Diary with the initials I.M.S. was spattered with drops.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Anger and Fear
    Millie Swain was crying. She knew they were not pretty tears. Even now, in spite of what had happened, she was filled with rage and disgust at Madre, rage and disgust against herself. She was also frightened.
    Millie had turned away to the window of her dressing-room in the Irving, although there was no view, just thick glass edged by thin flowered cotton curtains and nothing beyond. But Millie