The perfect candidate

THE train was slowing. Augustine Brown looked again at the letter in her hand. Exciting news! her sister Cordelia had written. “An unexpected guest at the hotel: Maria Mironova. Exciting news indeed.

MUMMY says you need a new lady in your life. Do you need a new lady in your life, Grandpa?” Lily lifted her head from the drawing she was doing and looked Joe in the eye. If he’d been drinking coffee

INGLEFIELD Publishing Group, Primrose Barry speaking, good morning.” Primrose heard the coins drop at the other end of the line. Someone calling from a telephone kiosk. “Primrose?” Hearing her sister’

YOU’RE not to touch a single thing in here,” the woman in the kitchen said. She had that look, the look of a servant who thinks herself a cut above the rest. She was all stain-free apron, all hands on

THERE’S a nice new girl working at the Post Office,” I said casually, as I unpacked my shopping on to the kitchen table. “Oh?” my daughter Debra answered, without looking up from her book. “Yes,” I co

I WAS a nightmare in the early days of my marriage, I admit it. I’d met Johnny on a skiing holiday in Courchevel, where we’d both gone with groups of chums. Johnny was the most daring of us and the be