Full of resentment, Lisa had made no attempt to fit in and had gloried in shocking her besotted husband’s friends with her behaviour. A helpless onlooker suffering from all the supersensitivity of a teenager, Tabby had died a thousand deaths of embarrassment and had avoided being in the adults’ company as much as she’d been able.

At the same time, unfortunately, Tabby had also felt like a fish out of water with Pippa, Hilary and Jen. Her friends, with their stable homes and loving parents still safe and intact, had seemed aeons removed from her in their every innocence. In addition she had been too loyal to her father to tell anyone just how dreadfully unhappy and isolated she’d been feeling. And then she had seen Christien and all her own petty anxieties and the rest of the world, and indeed everyone in it, had no longer existed for her.

It had only been the second day of their vacation. Mulling over the humiliation of having been called a ‘nasty little bitch’ and sworn at by Lisa in front of Pippa’s aghast parents at breakfast time, Tabby had been sitting on the wall under the plane trees in the sleepy little village below the farmhouse. A long, low yellow sports car had growled down the hill and round the corner like a snarling beast and had come to a throaty, purring halt a little further down the street.

A very tall, well-built male wearing sunglasses had climbed out and sauntered into the little pavement café. Clad in an off-white shirt with the cuffs carelessly turned back and beige chinos of faultless cut, he had sunk down at a table and tossed a note to the owner’s son, who had run into the shop next door to fetch him a newspaper. He had been so cool she had been welded to his every move.

The bar owner had greeted him with pronounced respect and had polished his already clean table.