I’ve no idea if she was referring to me-there was a US deserter who faked his kidnapping before fleeing to the Lebanon-but that’s how her words were interpreted. Dan told me that four of the main terrorist groups had denied holding me, and the Arab press was full of articles claiming a foreign correspondent had sought to make money out of passing herself off as a victim. Thankfully, the Western press ignored it-either from fear of a libel suit or because they knew my story hadn’t appeared-but it made me even more reluctant to advertise where I was. It turned me against Adelina. I knew her words had probably been “rearranged” to suit the editor’s take, but I did wonder if the reason she was able to give interviews was because nothing much had happened to her.

When I finally went looking for Jess, she said she could always tell when Madeleine had been spreading her poison. It didn’t matter who the recipient was, or how sensible they were, they never smiled as freely afterwards as they’d done before. She said I’d tried harder than most but I’d made my interest in her wrists too obvious. She took the hint after a couple of days and left me to get on with it. There were some things in life that weren’t worth bothering with, and convincing strangers that she wasn’t planning to knife them was top of the list.

It was an interesting rebuttal, since I hadn’t told her I’d spoken to Madeleine. Was Madeleine so believable that everyone reacted in the same way? If so, it was frightening. I did ask Jess why she allowed half-truths to stand instead of coming out fighting, but she shrugged and said there was no point. “People believe what they want to believe,” she said, “and I refuse to be something I’m not just to prove them wrong.”

I couldn’t follow her logic. “In what way?”

“I despise them,” she said rather dryly, “and I’d have to pretend I didn’t if I wanted to change their minds.”

“You might feel differently if you got to know them.”

“Why? It won’t change the fact that they believed Madeleine.”

This was part of a conversation we had in her kitchen after I plucked up the courage to drive to her house. There was no alternative, since she hadn’t responded to either of my telephone messages, but I was terrified her mastiffs might be roaming free. I drove up the half-mile track to the farm and slowed to a halt in the middle of the yard while I tried to work out where her front door was. I had my window down because it was a rare day of sunshine in an otherwise wet month, and I heard the dogs barking furiously as soon as I put the gears into neutral. The sound was too loud for them to be inside and I looked around nervously to see where they were.

The house was separated from the yard by a beech hedge that was tall enough to mask the ground floor, but there was no obvious gap to suggest an entrance. To my left was a barn, and to my right the track appeared to follow the line of the hedge round a sharp corner at the far end of the house, although flashes of prowling mastiff behind the beech trunks persuaded me that getting out for the purpose of exploration was a bad idea. As I was pondering my options, I heard the sound of a powerful motor and a tractor came roaring around the bend, towing a hay baler behind it.

I had a brief glimpse of Jess’s scowling face before she swerved past me and into the barn. Half a second later, she reversed out again, missing the back of my car by six inches as the baler swung in the opposite direction from the tractor. She performed a neat three-point turn, with the tractor a whisker away from my wing mirror, before she reversed the whole contraption back under cover. She wasn’t taking any prisoners that day, and I’m sure I did look scared as a couple of tons of metal looked like flattening my Mini.

She killed the engine and jumped down from the cab, whistling to the dogs to quit their noise. “You’re in the way,” she told me. “Another time, park up by the hedge.”

I opened my door. “Sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said curtly. “I wasn’t trying to hit you.”

“I realize that. I’d have moved except I couldn’t tell which way you were going to turn…and I didn’t want to make matters worse.”

“The opposite of what you’d expect. I thought you grew up on a farm.”

“I meant the tractor.”

She crossed her arms. “Did you want something?”

“No. I just thought I’d…see how you are. You haven’t been around and you didn’t anwer my messages.”

To my surprise, a slight flush rose in her cheeks. “I’ve been busy.”

I pushed the car door wider. “Is this a bad time? I can come back later.”

“It depends what you want.”

“Nothing. I just came for a chat.”

She frowned at me as if I’d said something peculiar. “I have to unhitch the baler and grease it. You can talk to me while I do that if you like. You’re not dressed for it, though. The barn’s pretty messy.”

“That’s OK. Everything’s washable.” I climbed out of the car and picked my way across the rutted yard in my long wrap-over skirt and leather flip-flop sandals. She eyed me disapprovingly and I wondered what was offending her. “Is something wrong?”

“You look as if you’re going to a garden party.”

“I always dress like this.”

“Well, you shouldn’t. Not on a working farm.” She nodded to some sacks of potatoes inside the barn entrance. “You can sit on one of those. What do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing in particular.”

She eased the baler forward and worked it loose from the tractor tow before pushing it back against the wall. For a small woman, she had extraordinary strength. According to her, anyone could do anything when they needed to. It was mind over matter. Until it came to talking. Her expression said very clearly that if I expected her to start the conversation, I was going to be disappointed. I watched her take a handful of grease and work it into the twine-tying pivots.

“Do you have to do this every time you use it?”

“It helps. The machine’s twenty years old.”

“Is it the only one you’ve got?”

“It’s the only baler.” She jerked her chin at a combine harvester at the other end of the barn. “That’s what handles the crops.”

I turned to look at it. “Dad had one in Zimbabwe.”

“It’s pretty much standard these days. Some people rent them but I bought that secondhand at a farm auction.”

I watched her working. “Why were you using the baler today?” I asked after a while. “I haven’t seen any crops being harvested, so there won’t be any straw yet.”

“I’m taking the hay from the field margins while the weather holds.” She seemed to think it was an intelligent question because she decided to expand on it. “The long-range forecasts are predicting more rain for August so it seemed sensible to bale what we could while we had the chance. We’ll have trouble bringing in the wheat if the forecasters are right…let alone straw.”

We…? “Do you have help?”

She put the lid back on the can of grease and picked up a rag to wipe her hands. “Some. There’s Harry who’s worked here for years and a couple of lady part-timers-one comes mornings, the other afternoons.”

“From Winterbourne Barton?”

“Weymouth.”

“What do they do?”

“Whatever’s on the rota.”

“Ploughing?”

She nodded. “Anything to do with the crops. Harry and I look after the herds, the fencing and the woodland…but we all lend a hand where necessary.” She eyed me curiously as she folded the rag and put it on the grease can. “Don’t they have women farmworkers in Zimbabwe?”

“Thousands.”

“Then why do you look so surprised?”

I smiled. “Because everyone in Winterbourne Barton describes you as a loner, and now I discover you have three people working for you.”

“So?”

“It’s a wrong description of you. I got the impression you lived and worked on your own.”

Her mouth twisted cynically. “That’s Winterbourne Barton for you. They’re completely ignorant about how much work is involved in running a farm, but then most of them have never lived in the country before.” She glanced towards the house. “I’m making some sandwiches for lunch. Do you want to come in while I do it?”