`Anyway, in the end I latched on to a girl called Anne who lived a couple of miles away. I didn't like her all that much, but she was better than nobody. She had a sister called Helen.'

Kate paused, remembering Helen and that long, hot summer.

`Well?' Serena prompted.

`Helen was having a fling with Luke Hardman,' Kate continued, almost reluctantly. `Having a bit of rough, she used to call it,' she remembered with distaste. `Her parents would have been furious if they'd found out, so Anne and I used to be roped in as alibis. Helen would pretend to come riding with us. We'd go down to the woods so she could meet Luke, and then Anne and I would be sent off for a couple of hours.'

Kate could still remember the frisson she had felt when Luke had smiled up at Helen, the look on his face as he'd pulled her off her horse. There had been an earthy sexuality about them that had made Kate uncomfortably aware of her own innocence. Luke had never even noticed she was there.

`Helen was all over him,' she continued. `But she'd come back and sneer at him behind his back because he didn't hold his knife properly or something equally stupid. I hated that.'

`She sounds a bitch,' Serena said frankly. `Did Luke know what she was like?'

Kate shrugged. `You could never tell what Luke thought, but he found out soon enough. We were due to go riding one day and meet Luke down in the woods as usual, when Helen strolled in and said she wasn't coming, she'd been invited to the south of France and the men were more sophisticated down there. I asked her if she was going to tell Luke and she just laughed and said we should let him wait, he'd get the message soon enough. I'll never forget the way she laughed.'

`What did you do?'

`Anne was all for doing as Helen said, but I couldn't let him sit there and wait. It sounds stupid, but I hated the thought of him being humiliated. It would be like watching a tiger doing tricks. So I went down to the woods by myself and told him Helen wasn't coming.'