The McCabe Girls Complete Collection: Cat, Fen, Pip, Home Truths

‘Didier,’ Ben said, ‘there are just five days of racing left now.’

The rider shrugged and nodded and retied his pony-tail.

‘My elbow’s sore,’ he told his doctor.

‘I can fix most things, Didier,’ Ben said, manipulating the rider’s elbow, ‘it is my job. Your health is in my hands.’

‘Merci,’ said Didier.

He watched the rider lope away and kicked himself for feeling so impotent. And then he caught sight of Rachel and knew at once how he could help Didier. She was leaning against a tree and, visible from some distance, was the sparkle she was bestowing on a man. Ben was amazed. Zucca MV and Système Vipère were all but entwined. It was so public. So scandalous. Key figures in the support staff of two rival teams flirting in full view. Should he leave them to it? She was his friend after all. He stopped and looked around him. No sign of Cat. Nor of Luca – what was it that Didier had said? Where is Didier? It was scandal overload on the morning of Stage 16 of the Tour de France and Ben felt enormously tired.

Oh, for the life of a regular doctor. With a surgery in a suburb. And a receptionist. And a legion of elderly people with gout and hypochondria. Perhaps a Well Woman clinic every Tuesday. Prostate awareness once a fortnight. Flu jabs. And a desk. With a photo of my wife and two kids. And my spaniel. I could have a Saab parked outside in a reserved space.

‘Hey, Ben,’ said Rachel, bringing him back to the balmy present of picturesque Gilbertville, to the sounds, the scents, the sense of excitement of the Tour de France. Ben closed his eyes and took a deep breath, acknowledging how, though fleeting, his daydream was not just deluded but utterly suffocating and essentially undesirable. There was only one place he wanted to be, and only one way he could possibly practise medicine.

‘Have you met André Ferrette?’ Rachel continued, eager that Ben should. The men shook hands.

‘I need your help,’ Ben said, prophesying that Rachel might well need his when the respective directeurs discovered that their staff were mingling.

‘Sure,’ said Rachel, sensing instantly that he required her capacity as friend.

‘I’ll see you later,’ André said, taking her hand. Rachel beamed and Ben noticed how she now radiated femininity and allure, having kept such qualities invisible until she saw fit to unleash them on the man of her choice. So very Rachel. Strong. Sussed. Independent. Nobody’s fool. Her own boss.

‘What’s up, Yorkie?’ she said, reverting to the demeanour and look of Ben’s friend, the Zucca MV soigneur.

‘It’s Didier,’ said Ben gravely, ‘and Jan van Loth.’

‘You need Vasily,’ Rachel said astutely, ‘he rates Didier. I’ll see what I can do.’

Ben felt easier but was still apprehensive. Though Rachel understood the urgency and gravity, he longed for Cat. His job was highly stressful. He wanted to talk through, to unwind, to offload, to be soothed. But it was 11 a.m. and, dependent on developments in the Stage, Cat would not be off duty until the evening.

‘What’s the time?’ Cat asks Josh.

‘Almost nine,’ he replies. ‘Are you through?’

‘Yup.’

What happened in the Tour today, Cat?

It was utterly bizarre. Vasily lost a whole bloody minute. He didn’t so much lose it but threw it away. No one knows why – there was no press conference. It must be strategy – but certainly not as we know it. Fabian and Carlos streamed off at the foot of the middle climb and Vasily just sat in a chasing group not actively pursuing at all.

So he is only 1 minute 33 ahead of Fabian?

Yes. And Carlos Jesu Velasquez took the polka dot jersey today with a truly ruthless ride. Poor darling Massimo suffered a double puncture on the first Col and fell off pretty badly on the descent. Though it violated race etiquette, Carlos took full advantage and zipped away. Massimo really floundered after that – he was incapable of mind over matter and there were no domestiques to raise morale and physically lead him back. Zucca were catastrophically lax today.

So his dream of a King of the Mountains hat trick has vanished?

I know. And I can’t get hold of Rachel to find out how he is. Her phone’s switched off. And I know her well enough to know there must be a reason for that. And I’m hoping the reason is that, for once, she’s prioritizing herself. If Rachel’s phone is not on, it’s a blatant Do Not Disturb sign. And I’m happy to respect that. As long as she gives me a full report in glorious Technicolor tomorrow.

‘What’s the time?’ Rachel asks André whilst she folds and refolds the batch of laundry just retrieved from the dryer in the Zucca MV team truck.

‘Nearly nine,’ he replies, checking his watch fastidiously. ‘Your team had a very bad day.’

‘My job is not to judge, not even to comment,’ Rachel responds, ‘but you’re right. Your boys must be pleased – Fabian taking a minute from Vasily and Carlos taking the polka dot jersey from our Massimo. Poor Mass, he’ll probably shave his goatee off. Or dye it.’ She leans out of the truck and pulls the door shut, locking it from the inside. ‘I really should be tucked up in bed,’ she muses, taking an empty bidon to her lips and sucking thoughtfully.

‘Early massage for the boys, early night for Rachel?’ André laughs, hoping she won’t take him literally.

‘That’s what I told them,’ Rachel says a little guiltily, wondering whether a white lie warrants comeuppance. André glances around the truck. It’s pretty much identical to the Viper’s. He turns the taps on and off at the sink and Rachel fiddles with a scrunched-up piece of cling film.

Just bloody kiss me, you bastard!

André, however, is expressing polite but excessive interest in the quality of the melamine fittings.

‘Your English is very good,’ Rachel says as huskily as she can. André responds to the flattery not with a lunge for her breasts, as she rather hopes, but with a chronological account of his schooling.

Oh fuck it, Rachel thinks to herself, I’ll bloody kiss you then.

André is saying something about something or other when Rachel flicks off the light in the truck and, knowing the layout of her second home off by heart, finds the mechanic, holds his face and presents her lips to his.

There’s something about the situation, the furtiveness of it all; the scent of the almonds from the frangipane, the hum of the washing machine, the smell of chain grease, the confinements of the truck interior, the build up of a few days of glances, of emboldened flirting, that touchdown between these two pairs of lips inflames. Suddenly, clothing is being torn away, André’s textbook English is replaced by throaty Gallic exclamations and Rachel’s tough talking transmutes into soft gasps and moans.

Massimo Lipari couldn’t sleep – what was the point when his dreams had already been dashed? Whenever he closed his eyes, the nightmare of reality accosted him. His body was sore, he had bad road rash down his entire left side. His head hurt, scorched by the incessant what ifs, if onlys, why didn’ts and I should haves tormenting him. He had a room to himself and though he had craved the solitude in which he could weep unchecked, now he did not trust or particularly like his own company. He was more appalled that he had bonked than he was outraged that Carlos attacked when he was down.

Humming his Giro pop song brought no solace, a funeral dirge seemed more appropriate, but he opted for the sad song of love and loss his grandmother had crooned to him under the olive trees when he was a child. He had so wanted to be King of the Mountains; the title suited him as much as the jersey. He made a solemn procession to the bathroom, took a razor and shaved off his goatee beard. He almost wept. And then he saw how the skin around his chin was ever so slightly, but certainly recognizably paler. He yelled in frustration. He needed fresh air. He eased up a window and gulped deeply. He gazed at the team truck, envisaging the bike that failed him hanging from its hook. Let it hang!

Fifteen minutes later, Rachel answered her door in her towel, so insistent was the rapping and banging and hollering outside her room.

‘What you think you do?’ Massimo spat, pushing past her, his eyes searching every nook of the room.

‘I’m about to have a bath!’ Rachel remonstrated, noting that she ought to change the dressing on his knee first.

‘You bad bitch,’ Massimo growled, ‘what you do? You poison me?’

‘Mass!’ Rachel exclaimed, flummoxed and truly taken aback.

‘Or you are stupid and maybe he put something in my drink, no?’ he shouted. ‘He make me bonk.’

‘Who?’ Rachel pleaded, thinking she ought to work also on Massimo’s shoulder to prevent it stiffening.

‘Maybe he turn you away from me,’ Massimo declared, ‘make you not look after me so well?’

‘Who?’ Rachel implored, prophesying that Massimo would either hit her or burst into tears.

Massimo did the latter. Rachel secured her towel and sat on her bed beside him, laying an arm across the rider’s quivering shoulders.

‘Poor Mass,’ she said, ‘what a terrible day for you.’

‘Bad bitch,’ he sobbed.