Libby gave an irritated smile. "We've been there, done it. Also Sam's baldness ... Dorchester ... Leicester ... the weather..." She drummed her fingers impatiently on the table. "You promised me 12:30 so that I could be back on the motor-way before the Friday rush hour begins," she said sharply. "You knew I wanted to be home before Jim."
"Call him and tell him you're going to be late," I said reasonably.
"That's what we've been suggesting," murmured Jock.
"I can't. I don't want him knowing I've left the girls on their own."
"Couldn't they have gone to friends?"
"Not without questions being asked," she snapped, "and I really didn't want to go into long explanations about why this ridiculous meeting was necessary. Can we just get on with it?"
I ignored the request. "You should have let us come to Leicester," I said disingenuously. Ah, me! If looks could kill...
"It's not as though Jock's about to stake a prior claim or anything," I went on, reaching for his hand and swinging it lightly at my side, cementing alliances, ranging my troops. "He prefers them younger and blonder these days."
Jock gave a snort of laughter. "Too bloody right," he agreed unkindly. "And never with marriage in mind. That's one mistake I don't plan to repeat."
It was cruel but I have no conscience about it. If I'd known of the affair at the time, I'd have slapped the smile off her face before nailing my husband's bollocks to the wall. But a slow revenge is just as satisfying. I was sure it would drive her to distraction if she was forced to make banal small talk with her ex-lovers-her nature was too impatient and too self-centered for anything else-and neither Sam nor Jock was equipped to deal with a frustrated woman. They had failed dismally in the past, and I couldn't believe much had changed in the meantime.
Her lips thinned. "It's got nothing to do with Jock," she said tightly. "Jim thinks Amy's too young to look after her sisters. But she's not. She's almost fourteen."
"It's only natural," said Wendy idly, protruding long fingers like forceps to select a tuna and cucumber sandwich. "An untended nest and a hungry brood suggests to the male that his partner has flown." She smiled at Libby. "I suppose he's found it empty before, has he?"
There was a minor hiatus while Libby looked daggers at her and Wendy bit into her sandwich. The rest of us buried our noses in our wineglasses. To be honest, I wasn't remotely surprised that she was still a player but it was a shock to the men who both assumed, naively, that her passionate nature could be tamed by motherhood and a career. They lowered their heads to stare at their feet, and it was so perfect an example of the double standards that operate between men and women that I couldn't help smiling to myself.
Of course Libby saw it. I was her only real enemy so I was bound to be the focus of her attention. She bridled immediately. "You think you know it all, don't you?" she flashed.
"No," I murmured. "I was completely wrong about you. I thought you had more dignity than to go sniffing after other people's husbands."
"Oh, please!" she said scathingly. "Any sniffing that was done was done by Sam. He couldn't get unzipped quick enough when the opportunity arose. Or is that forgiven and forgotten because he's served twenty years of your downcast looks and injured pride?"
Sam stepped forward angrily but I shook my head at him. This was my fight and I'd waited a long time for it. "If you want a slanging match, Libby, then I'm happy to oblige ... Sam and Jock, too, I should imagine. But if you're as desperate to get away as you say then I suggest we sort these statements."
She hated her position of weakness, but she had the sense to force a smile. "All right. What do you want to know?"
"Which is correct? That you'd had a bath and were doing the laundry when Sam arrived? Or that you'd done the cooking and were watching television?"
She shook her head in convincing perplexity. "I honestly don't know," she said slowly. "It's so long ago I've forgotten most of the details. I just wrote down what I normally did at that time-cooking then catching the news-but if Sam's positive-?" She broke off to look at him. "Do you remember it that well?"
"Yes."
She was disconcerted by the bluntness of his answer. "I don't see how you can. It's not as if it was the only time you came to the house looking for sex."
"No," he agreed, "but it was the last time ... and I'd told you it was going to be the last time over the phone that afternoon. I said I wanted to talk to you about ending the affair without destroying everyone in the process. And I was furious when you draped yourself all over me the minute I came through the door, saying you'd had a bath in my honor and were washing sheets so you'd be able to replace our dirty ones on the bed before Jock came home. You can't have forgotten that, Libby. You told me I was frightening you because I said I'd do you some damage if you didn't take your hands off me immediately."
She gave a small laugh. "Oh, well ... if that's how you want to play it ... it's no skin off my nose. What does it matter what I was doing, anyway?" She shifted her gaze back to me. "We'll go with Sam's version. Does that make you happy?"
I nodded.
"Then you're a fool."
"Maybe." I crossed my arms and studied the point of my shoe, in no hurry to go on.
"Is that all there is?" she said indignantly. "Did you make me come all this way just so you could feel better about your husband's cheating?"
"Not quite," I said without rancor. "There's a major question mark over the time of Sam's arrival. He says 7:45, you say 6:30."
She frowned, as if trying to remember. "Okay, split the difference," she said helpfully. "Make it 7. Neither of us can be that precise after twenty years."
"Sam can," I countered mildly. "He's worked out his timing rather more accurately than you have ... and there's no way he could have reached you before a quarter to eight. If you calculate his walk from the office to the tube, the average time of the train journey, plus the walk from Richmond station to Graham Road, it's impossible for him to have done that trip in under an hour and a quarter. Which means 7:45 has to be the agreed time because he didn't leave work until 6:30."
Her hands moved impatiently in her lap. "How do you know that? Why should Sam's memory of the time he left his office be any better than mine of the time he arrived?"
"Because I'm not going by Sam's memory," I told her. "I was so suspicious of him after he and Jock made their statements that I checked with his office. I hoped I could get some proof that he was lying about the time he reached Graham Road because I knew the security guard clocked everyone out at the end of the day to make sure the building was empty before he locked up. I persuaded him to let me have a photocopy of the register for 14.11.78." I nodded toward the rucksack at my feet. "It's in there with 18:30 against Sam's name."
Her eyes dropped immediately to the bag but she didn't say anything.
"So we're agreed that 7:45 was the time Sam arrived?" I repeated.
She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "I can't see what difference it makes. All we did was talk."
"Yes, that's what you both say. Your version is that you talked for two and a half hours. His is that you talked for an hour."
She shrugged. "I didn't keep track."
"But you disagree over how the conversation went. Sam says he gave you an ultimatum-either the affair had to end or he'd come clean with me that night. You say it was you who delivered the ultimatum."
She cast a malicious glance in Sam's direction. "He can't say anything else," she said, "not if he wants you to believe I draped myself all over him when he came through the door."
I smiled slightly. "But that's the whole point, Libby. After the show you put on when he arrived, Sam expected you to be difficult ... but you weren't. You said you'd leave him alone ... no more hanging around outside his office ... no more demands on his time ... and the only quid pro quo was that he keep his mouth shut so that Jock wouldn't have an excuse to divorce you."