Rivals

along the balcony rail to make a snowball and handed it to her, but she only managed to chuck it a few yards down the ghostly whitening street.

‘Tell you never played cricket at school,’ said Bas fondly.

Then, drawing her close by the lapels of his coat, he slowly kissed her. They were so preoccupied, they didn’t even notice Rupert. Totally sobered up, he drove back to Penscombe.

The rest of the weekend was like the Phoney War. Rupert and Cameron were perfectly polite to each other. She worked on the franchise, he was off to Rome on Sunday for a meeting with the International Olympics Committee, but would be home on Wednesday night.

The only time she saw him with his guard down was when she caught a glimpse of him watching a Lassie film in the study. He was clutching Beaver and the tears were running down his cheeks.

48

After lunch next day, having scraped the frozen snow off the bird table and fed the birds for the fourth time, Declan had great difficulty getting out of his drive to visit Freddie. The gritters had been at work on the main roads, but the side lanes were murder. For once the beauty of the black and white landscape held no charms for him. He passed several cars, totally submerged, which must have been abandoned last night, and a farmer frantically trying to dig out some sheep before dusk. The sky was a dull mustard yellow, promising more snow. What would happen if none of the Venturer consortium could get up to London for the IBA meeting? Freddie’s drive had already been lavishly gritted.

‘I sent the Council a grittings telegram,’ he said with a huge laugh. ‘In fact I bunged them a few tenners so they made a detour past the ‘ouse.’

He poured Declan a large brandy and took him into his study. The house was blissfully warm after The Priory. Outside, Valerie’s garden had never looked more beautiful, totally hidden by snow, the gaudy colours wiped out, the vast rockery transformed into a mini-Andes, the garden gnomes and the plastic cherubs fluffed out into creatures of fable. Even the serried ranks of hybrid teas had become a white army hoisting up fistfuls of snow. If Valerie moved to the Arctic, reflected Declan, she might become an arbiter of garden taste, a Vita Sackville-North.

Freddie was in terrific spirits, brandishing the Telegraph with a piece on the forthcoming franchise struggle.

‘It says four incumbent companies are vulnerable and names Corinium as one of them. It also says: “Venturer, Corinium’s rival must be reckoned a considerable creative and management force.” Then it goes on to say: “Corinium are strongly challenged, and as a result their shares are selling at a substantial discount to assets.”’

‘I don’t understand what that means,’ said Declan.

‘Don’t matter. It’s good, believe me. We’re on our way, boy.’

‘What are we going to do about Cameron and Tony?’

Freddie chewed on his cigar. ‘I can’t believe she’s turned.’

‘I don’t want to, but we still haven’t discovered who leaked the names of the other moles to Tony.’

‘How was she in Ireland?’ asked Freddie.

‘Wonderful,’ said Declan wistfully.

‘Well then, my guess is that she’s dotty about Rupert, and when he started giving ‘er the runaround last night, Tony seized his chance and accosted her on the way back from the Ladies.’

Declan thought it was more complex. To bolster her chronic insecurity, Cameron had to have a man in her life, and after that last night in Galway, when she’d made such a definite play for him, he didn’t think she was Rupert’s exclusive property any more. He was also furious how much seeing her with Tony had upset him.

‘We’ve fought this fight absolutely straight up to now,’ said Freddie.

‘Except for Rupert seducing Cameron in the first place.’

‘But so much is at stake now,’ Freddie went on, ‘that we’d better put a private detective on Tony and get Rupert to slip a tiny bug into Cameron’s ’andbag.’

The snow was falling again, flakes tumbling down dark against the muddy yellow sky, then getting lost to view as they reached ground level.

‘Better not involve Rupert at this stage,’ said Declan. ‘If he realizes she’s been hobnobbing with Tony, he might get really rough and send her scuttling back to Tony for good. Anyway, she’s got a dozen bags. Rupert’s bound to bug the wrong one, and he’s off to Rome for three days tomorrow.’

‘OK,’ said Freddie, stubbing out his cigar and getting to his feet. ‘We’ll start wiv a private detective on Tony. I know an ace one. Leave it wiv me.’

Declan sensed that Freddie was anxious to get rid of him. ‘Where’s Valerie?’ he asked.

‘Visiting her sister in Cheam.’

‘Do you want to come over for supper?’

Freddie shook his head. ‘It’s not really a night to go out, thanks. I’ve got an ’ell of a lot of work to do. I keep forgetting I’m the Chief Executive of a public company.’

Committing adultery, Freddie reflected ruefully after Declan had gone, made one tell an ‘orrible lot of lies. James Vereker was spending the night in London at another Corinium dry run. Lizzie’s nanny was away for the weekend. He must remember to ring Valerie before he left, so she didn’t ring and find him not at home.

As he arrived at Lizzie’s, he felt glad that the steadily falling snow would cover any wheel tracks by morning. Lizzie was looking out for him, so no doorbells should wake the children.

She welcomed him in a primrose-yellow silk dressing-gown, rosy, warm and Floris-scented from the bath. The lights were low in the bedroom, but a fire burned merrily in the grate. Reflected tongues of flame lasciviously licked the ceiling. Making a mental note to throw away the evidence first thing in the morning, Lizzie said there was a bottle of Moett to be opened. Instead, Freddie opened her silk dressing-gown and felt his heart stop. Lizzie was wearing just black high heels and a black corset which pushed up her breasts, moulded her waist and stopped just above her damp blonde bush, except for four black suspenders holding up black fishnet stockings.

‘You are the loveliest fing I’ve ever seen,’ murmured Freddie. ‘Come live wiv me, and be my love. Leave it on,’ he added as Lizzie started unhooking.

Kneeling down, he removed her high heels and, kissing her instep, slowly kissed his way up until he could bury his face in the soft marshmallow of her thighs. Lizzie bent down to take off his jersey and shirt, feeling his stomach muscles tauten as she unbuckled his trouser belt. There was a huge mirror on the ceiling. James adored to watch his own reflection when he made love. Beside his lithe and taut bronzed beauty, Lizzie had always felt like a Beryl Cook lady. With Freddie she felt slim and beautiful and wanted to watch the whole thing.

‘I never rated swucksont-nurf before,’ said Freddie happily.

The snow had grown two inches on the window ledge. Freddie had grown several inches and diminished again. The logs had died in the grate before Lizzie leaned up on her elbow smoothing the red-gold curls on his chest.

‘I love you,’ she said softly, so as not to wake him.

Freddie opened an eye. ‘I meant it when I said come live wiv me and be my love,’ he said.

The following Tuesday morning James Vereker had a rare and intimate breakfast with his five-year-old daughter Eleanor. Usually James fled the din of little children in the morning and either had his muesli, prunes and herbal tea in bed or breakfasted at the Corinium canteen after a work-out in the gym. This week he and Lizzie were recording their second programme in the series on the way children enrich and restrict a marriage. James had already written his script which began: ‘As a caring parent, I. .’ and was now, in between reading the Guardian, doing a little research into fatherhood.

Sebastian, Ellie’s brother, who’d already got soaked making a snowman and nearly drowned testing the ice on the lake, was upstairs having his clothes changed by Jilly, the dependable boot of a nanny. Lizzie was working. Ellie was eating a boiled egg, dreamily dipping buttered toast soldiers into the yolk.

‘I hope you’ll watch “Round-Up” tonight,’ James said to her. ‘We’re visiting the zoo and filming a new polar