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take it meekly, as ever. Brayed at her in the VIP lounge to belt up, then shouted into the mobile that he was ditching his wife for his mistress. Humiliated her in the most dreadful manner. And now dear Mr Maxwell and his skills had ensured that everyone knew about it.
    That was her sole consolation. Gail pulled a fresh tissue out of the box and waved it at the screen as the young couple climbed into the flower-bedecked Rolls. The Ashworth reception was to be at the Savoy, the honeymoon destination was a secret. Her reception had been in her mother’s front room with the smell of mothballs on her aunties’ dresses, and the honeymoon had been three days in New Brighton. They had lived for years on a police constable’s wage of seven pounds a week. She had supported him steadfastly. And this was all the gratitude she got.
    The screen returned to a commentator. The phone was ringing. If that was another request for an interview about why marriages failed, she would accept, and tell her side of the story to anyone who would listen.

Chapter Three
    Diane Clark sat up in bed and pressed the switch of the remote control. ‘That damned wedding,’ she said. ‘Isn’t there anything else on?’
    ‘You wanted to watch the news, Diane. That is the news, today,’ came a muffled response from the depths of the bedclothes.
    It was early evening. From between drawn curtains, hanging motionless in the still air, a narrow shaft of sunlight spread itself over the carpet. The flat was warm and stuffy; the remains of a bouquet of white roses drooped in a vase. The silvered presentation pieces on the mantelpiece gleamed dully. The framed photographs on the living room wall were in shadow: President Mandela with Diane, a young Diane in a delegation with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Diane with spiky hair and anorak under a banner on an Aldermaston march, Diane with a stud through her nose with the women of Greenham Common. The only other picture in the flat, showing Diane as a pigtailed child being hugged by Aneurin Bevan, was hung in the bathroom.
    In deference to the wedding, the parliamentary schedule had been light. Those who yearned to debate pest control in zoos had had the entire afternoon and an empty chamber to themselves. Diane, whose department did not deal with such matters, had a different agenda for spare moments. She had excused herself from the office, said she was going to catch up with some reading and cleared off. Calls were to be held or diverted. She was not free indefinitely, however: a dinner with the Polish ambassador loomed. In an hour the official car, a Rover Sterling, would arrive. As a middle-ranking Cabinet minister she was not entitled to a Jaguar – yet.
    Diane switched off the television and tossed the remote control on to the bedside table. She glanced coolly at herself in the mirrored doors of the wardrobe. A faint mauve vein showed on her neck and the jaw had a slight slackness that was absent from the Aldermaston picture, but otherwise time had treated her well, far better than many of her male colleagues. She rubbed her hands over her big breasts and cupped them, peering down at their firm fullness. ‘See, I’m all flushed. Pink as a baby,’ she said, and played her fingers over her breastbone.
    ‘Naturally,’ came the sleepy voice from the bed. A tousled dark head surfaced, with damp fronds and a shadow over the jowls, then fell back again on the pillows. ‘You’ve been making love. With your usual fire and passion. God, what a woman! I’m knackered, Diane, and I’m twenty years younger than you.’
    The young man struggled to sit upright and pushed back the sheets. He had the thinness of youth, with pale skin, narrow shoulders and sinewy arms. A trickle of sweat led from his throat to his navel following the line of black hairs. Together they peered at his groin where a limp, shrunken penis flopped on his thigh. He tapped it with a finger. ‘Finished,’ he said, with a giggle.