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to me.’ As she turned back to Vivienne Kayla poked out so much tongue that Vivienne couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Ignore her, she’ll grow up one of these days,’ Alice commanded, lending weight to Kayla’s belief that she had eyes in the back of her head. ‘Now, what I’m concerned about is this: when exactly did Jacqueline disappear? What prompted her to go?’
    ‘How can I possibly know that?’ Vivienne protested.
    ‘I don’t suppose you can, but I think it’s important, don’t you, because the last thing you need is that woman turning up on your doorstep, or worse, dropping in on your mother for a nice cosy little chat, so we need to know—’
    ‘You’re making her sound like some kind of maniac,’ Vivienne broke in. ‘She has issues, we all know that.’
    ‘And one of them is you.’
    ‘Not really. Miles and I haven’t even seen one another …’
    Alice waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’m aware of how long it’s been, and I don’t want him coming back into your life only to hurt you all over again. You went through enough the last time he broke up with you.’
    ‘He didn’t have much choice.’
    ‘So he says.’
    Vivienne looked at her in astonishment. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she demanded.
    ‘All we know is what he told us.’
    Vivienne’s eyes flashed with temper. ‘You know what Jacqueline did to herself and Kelsey,’ she said angrily. ‘They were in hospital for God’s sake, and as far as I’m aware you never had these doubts about him before, so where are they coming from now?’
    ‘Vivi, where marriages are concerned
no one
knows what’s really going on, except those who are in it. And, I’m afraid, having a tragedy doesn’t make someone a saint. Miles has his faults too, and no one knows them better than his wife. She’s the one who’s had to live with them all these years, and she’s the one who’s—’
    Vivienne got up and began walking to the door. ‘I’m not listening to any more of this,’ she declared. ‘It’s bad enough that Jacqueline has taken it into her head to disappear. That you now think Miles is in some way responsible for her depressions and delusions …’ She spun round angrily. ‘Putting everything else aside, you met him often enough, so how can you stand there accusing him of … Well, I don’t know what you’re accusing him of, and I’m not sure I want to.’
    ‘I was crazy about him, I admit it,’ Alice said. ‘It was hard not to be, but marriages break up all the time, Vivi. She’d have got over it, eventually, everyone does, so why didn’t he—’
    ‘You know very well that wouldn’t be true in her case – and I had no idea you’d been harbouring all these horrible thoughts and suspicions. That you could think for a minute that Miles is some kind of …
monster
…’
    ‘That’s not what I’m saying, because I know he’s not, but he isn’t perfect either. No one is, and how do you know if you have the full story of what happened fifteen years ago? It’s a long time, Vivi, they’ve been through a lot since then and you’ve only ever heard it from his side.’
    Vivienne’s hands went to her head. ‘He’s not a liar, Alice. I trust what he told me, and if you think I was gullible enough to be taken in …’
    ‘Not gullible, just blinded, as we all are by love.’
    Vivienne looked at Kayla, and to her dismay saw only solidarity with Alice, rather than sympathy with her.
    ‘All we want is to stop you doing anything that’s going to end in disaster,’ Alice said gently. ‘He’s been in touch, next he might want to see you, then heaven knows where it might end, but whatever happens, you’ll never be able to change his past … Oh God, Vivi, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
    ‘I’m not crying,’ Vivienne declared, bringing her head out of her hands. ‘I’m just horrified that we’re even having this conversation. I always thought I had your wholehearted support …’
    ‘That’s