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

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.

      ‘What have I done?’ Rachel asked, trying not to be offended.

      ‘I see you in the truck – with the Viper mechanic. You are stupid! He is dangerous!’

      Rachel, who was utterly at ease with her level of intelligence and with the authenticity of André’s virtues, was nonetheless agitated by Massimo bombarding into her personal life.

      ‘I go tell our directeur!’ Massimo cautioned. ‘Then I go tell L’Equipe.’

      Though Rachel would have quite liked a profile in France’s famous sports paper, she knew that it would not be her sex life which warranted any such exposure. She accepted that Massimo’s concerns were legitimate, for the good of the team, but still Rachel was exasperated.

      ‘I’m entitled to some privacy, Massimo,’ she said.

      ‘Why you do it?’ Massimo demanded. ‘You spy? Who you poison next? Vasily? He ride like shit today.’

      ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Rachel said emphatically, ‘I was just having a shag.’

      Massimo regarded her blankly. ‘You?’ he gasped, utterly staggered, as if considering for the first time that Rachel McEwen had a libido, let alone an active sex life. ‘You? Rachel?’

      ‘Me, Rachel,’ she said with steel in her voice.

      ‘You had a fuck in the truck?’ Massimo exclaimed, wide-eyed and gobsmacked.

      ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ Rachel replied. It irritated her to see that Massimo’s primary concern and immediate relief was more that she was not a spy or drink spiker, than he was pleased for her to have found someone she liked.

      ‘Good,’ he said, ‘I apologize. You great soigneur and lovely lady. Why you not choose a guy from some other team?’

      ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Rachel, now thinking it all so tedious, ‘as if I chose the team before the man. Give me a break.’

      ‘You are very hard biscuit,’ Massimo said earnestly.

      ‘A tough cookie,’ Rachel deduced.

      Massimo rubbed his newly shaved chin. ‘I fail, Rachel, I am no good,’ he