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‘What other things?’

‘Um… give him a wash.’

‘A wash? Here – look, there's a light.’

He flicked it on, just as I'd crouched down with my bucket and sponge and teased out Hector's…

There was a highly charged silence as I determinedly finished what I'd set out to do. After a while I couldn't bear it.

‘Please wait in the car,’ I whispered.

‘You're kidding,’ he drawled breathlessly. ‘I wouldn't miss this for the world. Do you do this to all the boys?’

‘It's Camilla,’ I hissed, red-faced. ‘She insists. She'll check.’

‘I've changed my mind about Camilla,’ he said after another long pause as he watched me. ‘I love her. I want to have her babies.’

‘Oh, no, you don't.’ I straightened up and threw the sponge in the bucket. ‘Camilla's husband won't get this sort of treatment, I'd put money on it. Camilla's husband probably gets missionary position sex only on his birthday.’

‘And what sort of sex, hypothetically speaking, d'you think he'd be missing out on?’

I regarded him lolling, arms folded over the stable door, eyes dancing.

‘Shut up, Ludo, and pass me that hoof pick.’

‘I love it when you talk horse,’ he moaned as I pointed to the pick, hanging on a hook by the door.

‘Just belt up and – oh. Shit!’ I stood stock-still in the middle of the stable. Listened.

‘What?’

‘She's here!’ The unmistakable sound of thundering tyres and hissing air brakes filled the night, as the lorry surely rumbled through the front gate. A cab door slammed, echoing in the quiet night, making the dogs inside the house bark. I recognized Brenda, sleeping over whilst we were supposedly in Yorkshire, yapping shrilly; Megan's throaty old woof.

‘Quick, turn off the light.’

Ludo flicked it off, and in an instant I was out of there, the stable door shut and bolted behind me. I looked around wildly, quivering with indecision. Too late, her heavy footsteps, like a man's – like a giant's, actually – came earthshakingly towards us. Fi-fi-fo-fum… I longed for a handy beanstalk and glanced, terrified, at Ludo. There was only one way into the yard, and she was coming through it. We were trapped.

‘In here,’ he muttered.

Quick as a flash, he'd bundled me into the adjoining stable, which happened to be Felix's. Felix eyed us in astonishment, but he was a mild-mannered little pony, and a very greedy one, and once he'd given us the cursory once-over, he carried on pulling at his hay net, munching hard. Ludo and I scuttled to a far corner of his stable and crouched down, Ludo's arm clamped pseudo-protectively around my shoulders, but I knew better. I glared at him and tried to shake him off, but he clamped himself even harder, frowning at me to be quiet, a finger to his lips, enjoying himself hugely, not remotely scared. Not like me. But then he had no idea of the ramifications. No idea of the magnitude of Camilla's wrath, nor my sister-in-law's, nor Anna's grief when her beloved pony was taken away.

I shut my eyes, bent my head and began to pray hard, hands clasped. There was the sound of a bolt shooting back on the adjacent door: Hector's box. Then the stable light went on, and then… I was going to say the unmistakable tones of Camilla Gavin rang out into the night, but although it was undoubtedly her voice that came, one could be forgiven for mistaking her. Instead of her usual clipped, posh bark, came the breathy, treacly tones some people reserve for small babies, some for their lovers, and some, for animals.

‘Oh, Heccy Heccy, wath he a lubberly, lubberly boy then? Wath he? Kissy kissy, Hec. Brrr… brr…!’

Sounds of a horse being open-mouth-snogged ensued. Or something horribly similar. I couldn't look at Ludo. Knew it was vitally important to keep staring straight ahead at Felix's broad brown backside and think about, um, Gordon Brown's position on, er, global warming.

‘Wath he Mumma's precious? And hath he been looked after like Mumma's precious boy should?’

Thank God Hector couldn't talk. Ludo was squeezing my shoulder, trying to catch my eye and, foolishly,