CHAPTER ONE

      THE telephone started ringing as Rachel was coming downstairs after putting the twins to bed. She muttered something not very complimentary, hitched six-monthold Michael further up her hip, and rushed the final few steps which brought her to the hall extension—then stopped dead with her hand hovering half an inch above the telephone receiver, her attention caught by the reflection in the mirror on the wall behind the telephone table.

      God, you look a mess! she told herself in disgust. Half her pale blonde hair was hanging in damp twists around her neck and face while the rest of it spewed untidily from a lopsided knot to one side of the top of her head. Her cheeks were flushed, her light blue overshirt darkened in huge patches where bathtime for three small children had extended its wetness to her also. And Michael was determinedly trying to wreak its final destruction by tugging at the buttons in an effort to expose her breast. A greedy child at the best of times, he was also tired and impatient now.

      ‘No,’ she scolded, gently but firmly forestalling his forage by disentangling his fingers from her blouse. ‘Wait.’ And she kissed the top of his downy head as she picked up the telephone receiver while still frowning at her own reflection.

      ‘Hello?’ she murmured, sounding distracted—which she certainly was.

      So distracted, in fact, that she missed the tense little pause before the person on the other end answered cautiously, ‘Rachel? It’s Amanda.’

      ‘Oh, hi, Mandy!’ Rachel watched pleased surprise ease the frown from her face, and only realised as she did so that she had been frowning. That brought the frown back, a perplexed one this time, because she had caught herself doing that a lot recently. ‘Michael, please wait a little longer!’ she sighed at the small boy grappling with her blouse.

      He scowled at her and she sent him a teasing scowl back, her blue eyes alight with love and amusement. He might be the most bad-tempered and demanding of her three children, but she adored him just the same—how could she not when she only had to look into those dove-grey eyes and see Daniel looking back at her?

      ‘Aren’t those brats in bed yet?’ Amanda sighed in disgust. She made no secret of the fact that she found the children an irritant. But then Mandy was the epitome of made-it-in-a-man’s-world woman. She had no time for children. She was a tall, willowy red-head who strode through her highly polished life on a different plane from the one Rachel existed on. She was the sophisticate while Rachel was the comfortable, stay-at-home wife and mother.

      She was also Rachel’s best friend. Well, maybe that was going a bit far, she acknowledged. She was the only friend Rachel had kept in touch with from her school days. The only one of the crowd who now lived in London like herself and Daniel. The others, as far as she knew, had made their lives back home in Cheshire.

      ‘Two down, one to go,’ she told her friend. ‘Michael wants feeding but he can wait,’ she added, for the baby’s benefit as much as Amanda’s.

      ‘And Daniel?’ Amanda asked next. ‘Is he home yet?’

      Rachel detected more disapproval in her friend’s tone and smiled at it. Amanda did not get on with Daniel. They struck uncomfortably hostile sparks off each other whenever they were in the same company.

      So, ‘No,’ Rachel said, adding ruefully, ‘So you’re safe to call him all the rotten names you like. He won’t overhear you.’

      It had been meant as a joke, and not a very new one either. Rachel had always given Amanda leave to vent her opinion of Daniel when he wasn’t around. It allowed her friend to get off her chest all those things she would have loved to say to his face only she never quite had the courage to. But this time just an odd silence followed the invitation, and Rachel felt a sudden and unaccountable tension fizz down the line towards her.

      ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked sharply.

      ‘Damn,’ Mandy muttered. ‘Yes. You could say that. Listen, Rachel. I’m going to feel an absolute heel for doing this, but you have a right to—’

      Just then, a pair of Postman Pat pyjamas came gliding down the stairs, the