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right,’ Joe agreed.
    Mitchell thought he was on to something because Joe was being polite for a change.
    ‘So what do you feel inside, Joe?’
    Joe peered at the spoon in his hand as if it was a jewel or a small triumph over cloudy cutlery.
    ‘I’ve got an FFF inside.’
    ‘What’s that, sir?’
    ‘A fucking funny feeling.’
    Mitchell, who was now drunk, slapped him on the back to confirm their new solidarity.
    ‘I’ll second that, Jozef whatever your surname is. I’ve got an FFF right here.’ He tapped his head. ‘I’ve got three of those.’
    Laura shuffled her long feet under the table and announced she had made a trifle for pudding. It was a recipe she had taken from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course and she hoped the custard had set and the cream hadn’t curdled.

SUNDAY
     
     

Hemlock Thief
     
    The beginning of birdsong. The sound of pine cones falling into the stillness of the pool. The harsh scent of rosemary growing in wooden crates on the window ledge. When Kitty Finch woke up she felt someone breathing on her face. At first she thought the window had blown open in the night, but then she saw him and had to shove her hair into her mouth to stop herself screaming out loud. A black-haired boy was standing by her bed and he was waving to her. She guessed he was fifteen years old and he was holding a notebook in the hand that was not waving. The notebook was yellow. He was wearing a school blazer and his tie was stuffed in his pocket. Eventually he disappeared into the wall, but she could still feel the breeze of his invisible waving hand.
    He was inside her. He had trance-journeyed into her mind. She was receiving his thoughts and feelings and his intentions. She dug her fingernails into her cheeks and, when she was sure she was awake, she walked towards the French doors and climbed into the pool. A wasp stung her wrist as she swam to the half-deflated lilo and pulled it to the shallow end. She wasn’t sure if the spectral vision was a ghost or a dream or a hallucination. Whatever it was, he had been in her mind for a long time. She plunged her head under the water and started to count to ten.
    Someone was in the pool with her.
    Kitty could just make out the magnified tips of Isabel Jacobs’ fingers scooping up insects that were always dying in the deep end. When she surfaced, Isabel’s strong arms were now slicing through the cold green water, the insects writhing in a pile on the paving stone nearest the pool’s edge. The journalist wife, so silent and superior, apparently disappeared to Nice at mealtimes and no one talked about it. Least of all her husband, who, Kitty hoped, had read her poem by now. That’s what he said he was going to do after the endless supper last night. He was going to lie on his bed and read her words.
    ‘You’re shivering, Kitty.’
    Isabel swam towards her until the two women stood shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the early-morning mist rise from the mountains. She told Isabel she had earache and she was feeling dizzy. It was the only way she could talk about what she had seen that morning.
    ‘You probably have an ear infection. It’s not surprising you’re unsteady on your feet.’
    Isabel was trying to sound like she was in control of everything. Kitty had seen her on the television about three years ago. Isabel Jacobs standing in the desert near a camel skeleton in Kuwait. She was leaning on a burnt-out army tank, pointing to a charred pair of soldier’s boots lying underneath it. Elegant and groomed, Isabel Jacobs was meaner than she looked. When she had dived into the pool yesterday and grabbed Kitty’s ankle, she had twisted it hard enough to give her a Chinese burn. Her foot still hurt from that. Isabel had hurt her deliberately, but Kitty couldn’t say anything because the next thing she did was offer her the spare room. No one dared say they minded, because the war correspondent was controlling them all. Like she had the final word or was daring