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Lauren saw her. Lauren was the current partner of Rick Radshaw, her first husband.
    â€œDarling! How come I didn’t spot you at interval?”
    â€œI didn’t spot you either, Lauren. Perhaps we weren’t looking.”
    â€œDarling, what are you doing at the moment?”
    â€œBeing a kept woman. You know how it is, Lauren.”
    â€œOh, catty! Actually, I’m opening in Loot next week. So I won’t be able to come to Forza . But Rick will be there, to support his talented offspring. We’re in a cottage in the Dales. Heaven! Bye, darling.”
    â€œDon’t ‘darling’ me, you bitch,” muttered Caroline as she got into the car.
    â€œDo I gather that is the dreadful Rick’s wife, partner, or appendage?” asked Marius as they drove off.
    â€œPartner.”
    â€œWhy the bitchiness?”
    â€œI’ve always loathed her. Everything is false about her except her spleen.”
    â€œSounds like she and Rick are well matched.”
    â€œIdeally. But what does that say about me, who married him and let him father my first child?”
    â€œThat you were hardly more than a child yourself at the time.”
    â€œI’ve known toddlers who had more sense and better judgment. And now I’ll have to be nice, specially nice, to him at the first night—as if he has had anything to do with Olivia’s success.”
    â€œWell, he is the parent with the singing voice, you said this morning.”
    â€œOh, I give him that. But that’s exactly like saying a parent has given its child brown eyes or fair hair or flat feet. Not something you can accept credit or blame for.”
    â€œCertainly not something you’re going to give him any credit for,” commented Marius. Caroline laughed.
    â€œYou bring out the best in me. I can hardly forgive you for that. Let’s forget about Rick.”
    And for the rest of the trip back to Alderley they laughed, were catty about the night’s supporting actors, and forgot all about Sheila, and Rick, and Pete. Marius, of course, probably never thought about Pete.

Chapter 4
Newcomers
    â€œI’ve found out how that Pete Whatisname found out about you and where we live,” announced Alexander at breakfast on Tuesday.
    â€œOh? How?”
    â€œThe rector’s daughter is at Leeds Metropolitan University.”
    â€œOh really? I thought she was at the older one.”
    â€œThey leave it vague,” said Alexander, with his habitual pleasure in finding out things. “They say ‘Gina will be going back to Leeds next week’—that sort of thing. I don’t think she makes any secret of it herself, but she’s hardly been around all summer.”
    â€œI can’t see why anyone should make a secret of it,” said Caroline.
    â€œDon’t you? It doesn’t have the prestige of Leeds University. Just a harmless little bit of snobbery on the rector’s part. Added to which, these new universities that used to be polytechnics are where people go who want to do wacky things like sports studies or the social history of sanitary engineering.”
    â€œI bow to your superior knowledge,” said Caroline. “I suppose it’s possible. But have you any evidence that they know each other?”
    â€œNo. But it’s obvious.”
    â€œHmmm. Well, a course in logic might be a good idea for you, whatever you do as your main subject.”
    â€œIt may not stick out a mile, Mum,” said Stella, “but you’ve got to admit it’s fairly likely.”
    After breakfast, washing up, and a rather perfunctory tidying of things, Caroline walked to the village shop, half a mile away.
    She was not surprised to see Jack walking in the opposite direction from the Dower House. They quite often did meet up in the shop, because Jack had come to know her habits—though he was sensible enough not to contrive it too often so that it was obvious that their