Mathers’ candour made her scratch her ear hard and take Willet’s corner too sharply. She swerved over the double-yellow line. The road was clear.

The thought had never occurred to her before, but it met her now with an unnerving clarity.’* He was working with Hadim, Pinter’s press secretary. They had wanted to keep the Ingerfold plans buried until after the spill. Mathers had told her as much:

‘Your husband’s mixed up in a little developer sex-ring — it’s the strangest thing — that’s entwined with the Huberville Council planning department. You can stop the development, but it’ll bring down Pinter by virtue of the mud and shit that’ll rain down once you go public.’

‘I’ve been advised to tell you that if you decide to pursue that matter before the 22nd, the deputy’s office will draw and quarter you in the tabloids.’

She pulled into the long plane-tree drive, and dabbed the blood from her left ear lobe with a tissue, after parking. So, that slut in planning — what did he say her name was — Uma Frost, had fucked Isaac, for what, a quicker passage of the caravan park DA?!

Before she could get out of her car her mobile rang.

‘Mrs Fulton-Mayer?’

‘Yes, who is this?’

‘Prudence Ingerfold.’

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* cited in A.L. McCann The White Body of Evening, 2002: 7.