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know that if I’d been in your shoes, I’d have played it in exactly the same way,’ Woodend admitted.
    He looked up, and saw Joan walking across the square towards him. She was moving a lot slower than she used to, he thought. She’d said she was in no more than minor discomfort, but could he really believe her?
    â€˜Some creatures walk into a trap even though they know it’s a trap,’ Paco Ruiz said. ‘They just can’t resist it.’
    â€˜Meanin’ that you’ve still got hopes I might agree to work on the case?’
    â€˜Exactly.’
    â€˜I’m goin’ to have to disappoint you,’ Woodend said, with genuine regret in his voice.
    â€˜Because I overplayed my hand, and succeeded in scaring you off after all?’
    â€˜Because my wife’s here for a rest, an’ my main concern has to be to see that she gets one.’
    â€˜That is your wife?’ Paco Ruiz asked, following Woodend’s gaze across the square.
    â€˜Yes, that’s her.’
    â€˜She looks a very nice woman.’
    â€˜She
is
a very nice woman.’
    â€˜If my wife and I were to invite you and your wife out for dinner this evening, do you think she would enjoy it?’
    â€˜Yes, I think she would.’
    â€˜So will you come?’
    â€˜I can’t promise, just at the moment,’ Woodend said. ‘You see, the way it works in my family is that I make the major decisions like whether the government should invade Russia or raise income tax.’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜An’ Joan makes the minor ones like where we should go for our holidays, an’ whether we should have dinner with my new mate.’
    â€˜Is that a polite way of refusing?’ Paco Ruiz asked.
    â€˜No, it’s what we Northerners call “knowing who really wears the trousers in our house”,’ Woodend said. He smiled. ‘Ask her yourself. I’m sure she’ll be delighted.’

Eight
    J essica Medwin had decided to use her husband’s temporary absence as an opportunity to do all sorts of things she didn’t normally have the time for. Thus, she had risen early that morning and put in a solid three hours hard work in her rose garden. That task successfully completed – and feeling amazingly virtuous – she allowed herself the luxury of a long, sudsy soak in a deep bath. Then, smelling sweet and feeling silky, she drove into Lancaster to have lunch with an old friend.
    It was at that point that her day started to go wrong.
    â€˜So where exactly has your Peter gone?’ Miriam Thoroughgood asked Jessica over the rich and evil whipped egg and cream dessert.
    Jessica – who was just raising a spoonful of the delicious concoction to her mouth – froze.
    â€˜He … er … didn’t actually say,’ she replied cautiously.
    â€˜Didn’t say! What do you mean, he didn’t say? You surely didn’t let him get away with that!’
    She hated it when her best friend made her feel like nothing more than a silly little girl, Jessica thought. She was beginning to wish that she’d never arranged this lunch.
    â€˜Goodness knows what he could be up to,’ Miriam said.
    â€˜Up to?’ Jessica replied, despising the fact that she was merely repeating her friend’s words.
    â€˜Well, the pair of you have been married for over twenty years now, haven’t you?’
    â€˜Yes, we have. So what?’
    â€˜And haven’t you ever considered the possibility that he might have grown just a little bored with you – that he might, perhaps, have gone off somewhere with another woman?’
    Jessica laughed. ‘Not my Peter.’
    â€˜You wouldn’t be the first woman, by a long chalk, to have ever said something like that and then found out she was completely wrong,’ her friend cautioned her.
    â€˜Peter worships me,’ Jessica said, and seeing the sceptical look on her friend’s face, she