The jamming had clearly been hasty because the flip-top lid was wedged ajar by a corner of the box. When he opened the lid fully and peered in, he saw the flattened plastic pouches of a sugary children’s fruit drink that the nanny had been expressly forbidden to give Maisie and Fred, and a couple of empty yoghurt pots, although the sweetened yoghurt fell into the same banned category. The nanny, a cheerfully unapologetic girl from Margate, had plainly given the children a fast-food supper and then swanned off for her evening’s entertainment, leaving the bathroom in disarray and Fred’s disposable-nappy receptacle in acute need of being emptied. Leo was not, personally, sanctimonious or particularly precious about food. But there was a difference, surely, between asking a nanny to avoid specified seductions ingeniously crafted by the food industry, when it came to her very young charges, and coming over all purist. All he and Ashley had ever said to Cheryl was please don’t give them sugar-laden, processed junk, and please cook them something fresh for supper every night.
