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man. I’m a business man, Kate, and I can’t afford to take chances, so your little sister was investigated. And what did I find? I found Miss Katherine Forrest, a stepsister, but even so nobody of whom Shirley should have been ashamed. It puzzled me, and yet at the same time it explained several mysteries. It explained how Shirley could vanish from the face of the earth for more than a year, how she could live without working, how she could have a baby without any money or without drawing any state benefits and afterwards live with the baby without having to consider adoption or having to work for a living. And when she was reunited with Theo, she chattered like a whole group of parakeets and yet not one word of Kate Forrest. Never, either before her marriage or afterwards, did she mention you.’
    Kate shrugged. ‘Why should she? We were only stepsisters, we weren’t so close.’
    ‘Lies, Kate!’ He sounded tired. ‘I’m weary of lies. Shirley was living with you when she ran away with Theo. You brought her up when her mother died. I know where you were born, what schools you went to. I have copies of your school -reports and copies of your tutor’s comments on your work at university. I have also a letter of reference from the headmistress of the school where you taught. I phoned the lady and implied that you were considering working for me and she wrote back in glowing terms, saying how much she’d missed you and what a loss your departure had been to the teaching profession.’
    Kate managed an indifferent shrug. ‘So?’ Her voice was acid as she glared at him. ‘You said we were going to talk,’ she reminded him. ‘What’s there to talk about? We both want the same thing—Philip! Only you have all the weapons, all the heavy artillery. You can stand up in court and make me out to be just what you choose—a nude model, even though you know I was no such thing. I can’t fight that! I could point out that you’re a lascivious womaniser, but where would that get me? You’re a man, and for some silly reason that seems to make a difference.’ Angrily she sprang to her feet and stood looking down at him.
    ‘I said we would talk, Kate. But you don’t talk, you hurl insults.’
    Her voice became quiet and deadly. ‘I couldn’t insult you, Mr Manfred. It’s an impossibility to be rudely discourteous to somebody like you.’
    Jerome Manfred’s face became bleak and his nostrils thinned. ‘Sit down! First of all we’ll talk about Gerald Twyford.’
    Kate sat. ‘What about Gerald?’ She was seething. That he should talk about insults after having her investigated like a common criminal!
    ‘Are you his mistress?’
    Kate’s face flamed and then went quite white as she struggled to hold her temper. She even indulged in a little black humour.
    ‘Don’t you know? Haven’t your spies been peeping in the right bedroom windows? I thought you said you knew everything, surely you’ve gone into that! Your spies could have reported to you where intercourse took place, how many times and the duration, I should have thought! Think of the extra weight you could use to prove that I’m not fit to have control of a child! A nude model and now a tramp!’ Her voice thinned so that the next words were a hiss of hate. ‘You could even buy a few other men to say I’ve slept with them as well. After all, there’s safety in numbers, and think what it would do for you in court. You’d look ten feet tall!’
    His hand came across the table to grasp hers cruelly. She looked down at it. Had she been able, she would have flung it off and gone and washed her wrist with disinfectant, but the grip was too strong. She considered the hand idly. A nice hand, long and slim, with thin brown fingers and smooth, well kept nails. She thought of Gerald’s hands and shivered. Hands were a fetish with her. Gerald had thick white fingers and spatulate nails, and sometimes he bit those nails. And there were rough, red hairs on the