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replied as if programmed.
    ‘I’m not interested in the exhibition.’ Ben didn’t try to hide the irritation in his voice. ‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? I need to return this boy to his parents, and I’m not leaving until I do. So either let me in or go find them. I don’t care which.’
    The security guard’s moustached colleague walked over. ‘Can I be of assistance?’
    Ben glanced him up and down. He didn’t seem quite as much of a specimen as the other, but Ben figured he could do better than this. ‘Who’s the manager here?’
    ‘Signor Corsini.’
    ‘Then I’d like to speak with Signor Corsini, please.’
    ‘He’s inside. He’s busy.’
    Ben was ready with a tough reply when a female voice cried out through the buzz of chatter inside the building. The crowd parted and a woman squeezed through in a hurry. She was maybe twenty-nine, thirty, dressed in a bright yellow frock, a fashionable handbag on a gold strap across her shoulder. Ben saw the resemblance to Gianni right away, the same blue eyes and sandy hair worn in a bob. She came running out, arms wide. ‘I was so worried! Where did you disappear off to?’ Her gaze switched across to Ben. ‘Signore, did you find him?’
    ‘Yes, and if I’d found him half a second later he’d have been plastered across the front of my car,’ Ben said.
    She glared at her son, hands on hips. ‘Gianni, is this true?’
    ‘Yes, Mama.’
    ‘What did I tell you about crossing the road?’
    ‘I know, Mama.’
    ‘Wait till I tell your father,’ she scolded, and the boy’s shoulders sagged further as though his worst fears had been confirmed. He was for it. But Ben could see from the light in the young mother’s eyes that she was more relieved than angry. She turned to him, overflowing with gratitude, pleading that he absolutely must come inside for a glass of wine. ‘I beg you, it’s the least I can do.’
    Ben thanked her, made eye contact with the first security goon who was still standing there and said pointedly, ‘It seems I don’t have an invitation.’
    ‘Nonsense,’ she protested. Turning to the security guys, she took a slip of paper from her handbag and thrust it at them. ‘My husband’s invitation. He’s allowed two guests. I’m one, and this gentleman is the other.’
    Ben hesitated for a moment, then shrugged.
What the hell
, he thought.
It’s not like I have anywhere else to go right now
. Plus, a glass of wine sounded like a decent idea at this moment. It wasn’t every day he almost flattened a kid, and the after-effects of the shock were still jangling through his system.
    ‘Well, if you insist,’ he said with a smile, and shouldered past the goons as she led him inside.

Chapter Nine
    Richmond, London

    The grass prickled Brooke’s knees as she leaned over her flower bed, reached out with the can and sprinkled water on the amaranthus, careful not to drown it. She loved the cascading red flowers of the plant she’d nurtured from a seedling, but it needed a lot of care and wasn’t completely suited to the soil of her tiny garden in Richmond.
    Saturday, even a beautiful early autumn afternoon like this one, wasn’t normally a day of leisure for Brooke. She had a thousand other things to attend to that she knew she was neglecting, including repainting the kitchen of her ground-floor apartment in the converted Victorian red-brick house – but spending time in the garden relaxed her and that was something she needed badly right now.
    As she stood up, brushing bits of grass from her bare knees and gazing at the colourful borders, she couldn’t help but let her mind drift back, as it had been doing obsessively of late, to the event a month earlier that was the cause of all her troubles.
    Phoebe’s invitation to the fifth wedding anniversary party had seemed a wonderful opportunity to catch up with the sister Brooke was so close to but didn’t get to see often enough. Their schedules seldom allowed it: Brooke was either too