“No. Of course not.”

“Here’s your drink. Let’s sit down.”

A sofa and two armchairs were arranged around a low table in front of a huge marbled fireplace, an aspidistra in a copper pot filling the grate. A mass of gold-edged invitations crowded out the bric-à-brac on the mantelpiece, above which hung a gloomy oil painting of what looked like the Tower of Babel. Sophie took one end of the sofa and patted the cushion of the adjacent armchair. I sat down and sipped at my drink, resisting a powerful urge to take several large gulps. Then I noticed the Bantock hanging on the wall facing me. As I’d been intended to, of course. A Madonna and child. Or an old woman with a doll. It was hard to tell.

“What’s your opinion of Expressionism, Robin?”

“I’m really not qualified to-”

“We’re all qualified, surely. To judge whether something’s good or bad. Right or wrong. I’ve never been entirely sold on Oscar’s work myself.”

“Then why-”

“As an investment. Louise was the enthusiast. I trusted her taste. And it’s paid off. Though ironically only because Oscar’s dead. And Louise with him.”

“Sophie, I didn’t come here to-”

“Discuss art? No. I suppose not.” She jiggled the ice in her glass and took rather more than a sip. “Ah, I needed that.” She smiled. “The first taste is always the best, isn’t it? Of everything.”

“Why did you say what you did to Seymour?”

“You believe in coming to the point, don’t you? Is that what-Well, we’ll come back to that later, I expect.”

“Come back to what?” She was playing the same game with me she’d started in Sapperton. The same cat-and-mouse progression towards a meaning we never quite reached. And the resemblance to Louise was growing again. Or I was noticing it more. But perhaps resemblance wasn’t the right word. It was more an imitation. An expert re-creation of parts of her she knew I’d recognize. The soft voice. The toss of the head. The balancing on the brink.

“I was shocked to hear about Rowena. A young life snuffed out. So tragic. I always envied Louise her children, never having had any myself. But I suppose they bring as much grief as joy. How is Keith bearing up?”

“I haven’t seen him. Or Sarah. Or Paul.”

“Ah. Giving them a wide berth, are you? I quite understand. I thought I ought to do the same. In the circumstances.”

“I’ve spoken to Bella.”

“Of course. Your sister-in-law. Lady Paxton, I should say. Though the name doesn’t quite fit, does it?”

“She tells me they’re all extremely upset. As you’d expect. And they hold you and me to blame for what’s happened. As you’d also expect.”

“So we’re in the same boat, then.”

“In a sense.”

“Mmm.” She leant back and stared up thoughtfully at the ceiling. “In that case, why don’t you tell me why you cooperated with the charming Mr. Seymour.”

“To stop him harassing Rowena.”

“You think he meant to?”

“I don’t know. It was an effective lever of persuasion, though. And once he’d got me talking, he knew a little creative editing would do the rest.”

“That’s your cover story, is it?”

“It happens to be-”

“Come on, Robin. Nobody’s going to swallow it, least of all me. Neither of us thought Rowena would be so… drastic. So… extreme. It wasn’t our fault.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No. So let’s stop pretending we were set up by Seymour. Even the papers seem to have given up portraying him as the villain of the piece. We both knew exactly what we were doing. And why.”

“Maybe. But I doubt our reasons were the same.”

“Really? I’d have said they were identical. You’ve never believed the official account of Louise’s death. And you were hoping Seymour might be able to cast enough doubt on it to make others share your disbelief. So you decided to give him a little help. That’s all.”

“Are you saying… that’s why you…”

“Of course. If I’d known you thought the same way-”

“But I don’t. I don’t think the same way at all.”

“Yes you do. You must do. Otherwise you wouldn’t have given Seymour an interview.”

“No. You’re wrong. That’s not why I did it.”

She leant close to me across the arm of the sofa, lowering her voice as if to whisper a secret. “I’m glad we’re on the same side, Robin. I reckon we both need an ally. A friend we can turn to. I was very much afraid you were in on it. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know you weren’t.”

“In on what?”

“I can see now I made too much of your… economy with the facts. But there was always a simpler explanation for that, wasn’t there? Some girlfriend you wanted to protect. Some fiancée, perhaps. Has she fallen by the wayside since? Is that why you’ve risked putting your head above the parapet?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do. But have it your own way. I don’t want to force you to admit anything.” She reached slowly out and traced a circle with her index finger on the back of my hand where it rested on the arm of the chair. “Or to do anything. Unless you want to. Unless we both want to.”

I looked into her eyes and realized with a shock of sudden desire that we both wanted what was still-but only just-avertible. The reasons were sick and wrong. There’d be a third party to anything that happened. A rival. A substitute. A silent observer. And yet-

“Louise is gone, Robin. But you don’t need to let go of her completely. People always said how alike we were.” I believed her. Even more than I wanted to believe her. The ghost I was chasing made flesh. Warm and close. The hem of the dress sliding up her thigh as she leant forward. The white lace bra glimpsed through its buttons. As once before. Pursuit, denial and temptation. Joined. “In so many ways.”

She kissed me slowly and deliberately, giving me ample time to recoil, but sensing I wouldn’t. Her eyes were closed at first. When they opened, I looked into them and knew we both meant to play this game to the end. From cool formality to burning intimacy. From lust to consummation.

And so we did. With eager abandon as she stretched like a cat beneath me across the hearthrug. And later, in the bed she led me to, again and again, with measured delight, as the sunlight mellowed and lengthened and passion curdled towards excess. As the afternoon faded towards evening and her urgings became my desires. I found her out in all her ways and wiles; her pains and her pleasures. What she wanted and how she wanted it, explored and refined with the heightened sense only long denial can breed. Mine and hers. From brutality to tenderness. And back again. Some of the way. But not quite all.

“What are you thinking, Robin?” she asked when the frenzy was finally spent and we lay motionless together, drained by what we’d done. “Are you shocked? That a middle-aged married woman should be capable of such depravity?”

“No,” I murmured in reply. And it was true. Sophie hadn’t shocked me. Nor had the things she’d let me do to her. Our shared and savoured spasms meant nothing. Compared with the dangerous fantasies that had coiled themselves around every moment of release-and all the moments after.

“My husband is my husband in name only, you know,” she went on, heedless of the ambiguity of my denial. “We haven’t made love in years. And even when we did…”

“Is there somebody else?”

“No. Nobody else. Not any more, anyway. Just as there isn’t for you, is there? Nobody. Not a single person who can replace her.”

“I don’t understand you.” It wasn’t quite true, of course. I seemed to understand her only too well. As she did me. And there was the rub. She shouldn’t have been able to. She shouldn’t have been capable of prying so deeply and accurately into my thoughts. And yet she was. “What do you mean, Sophie? What do you think you know about me and Louise?”