'Not exactly,' she replied, and, a little shamefaced, was obliged to admit, `I've been suspended.'

'You've been…' Kevin stared at her in total surprise. `Suspended!' he exclaimed. `What for?"

'You don't know?' Clearly he didn't Thomas Wakefield had not reported her to her department head, it seemed. But then, he didn't have to; he was handling it himself in his own beastly authoritarian way.

'I've no idea,' Kevin replied. `I was instructed not to allow you to drive any of the vehicles today and for you to report to Mr Wakefield at four, but…'

'It's a long story,' Yancie said quietly.

'You don't want to tell me about it?'

Yancie shook her head. 'I'd better go home.'

'Keep in touch.'

She said she would, but couldn't see that she would. It was highly unlikely that Thomson Wakefield would relent and see Kevin was informed that her suspension was over.

Tuesday dawned cold and bleak and Yancie, who normally had a very sunny temperament, owned to feeling a bit out of sorts. She made a meal of duck with a cherry sauce for herself and her cousins, and hid her low spirits as, being excellent friends as well as cousins, they chatted about all and everything until Astra, the career-minded one of the three, said she was off to her study.

'And I'm off to try and make my peace with my mother,' Fennia sighed.

'That leaves me with the washing-up,' Yancie remarked-and they all laughed.

'Best of luck with your mother,' Yancie and Astra said in unison.

'I'll need it!'

Yancie was in the kitchen when, ten minutes later, the telephone rang. So as not to have Astra disturbed if she was in the middle of something deeply technical on her computer, Yancie went quickly to answer it. Should the call be for either her or Fennia, then there'd be no need for Astra to be interrupted.

'Hello, Yancie Dawkins,' said her cousin Greville cheerfully, instantly recognising her voice. `How's the job going?'