“You try and be sensible.” Joan pulled her hand away. She was going to lose control, here, in front of McKinley, in these sensible offices with these sensible people. She pointed at the pitcher on the sideboard, and McKinley got up and poured her a glass. Lemon water, with too much lemon. Too sharp. She put the glass down.

“Would you consider offering a settlement?” said McKinley.

“It’s what she’s after,” said Pat.

“What kind of settlement could compare to Ian?” said Joan.

“She’s only after money,” said Pat.

“And to make me suffer.”

“We could turn over an increased allowance, or a lump sum if you prefer, in return for settling out of court.”

“She gets enough as it is,” said Joan. “She doesn’t deserve a penny more.”

“You’d get him back,” said Pat.

“How do you know?” snapped Joan. “She’d laugh in my face. She’d keep putting the price up. She’d ruin all our lives. If it was money she wanted, she’d have sent him back this morning with another one of her notes. She doesn’t love him, she doesn’t care for him, but without him she has nothing. No lump sum is going to make up for having the heir to my fortune.”

“She can’t win,” said Pat.

“But she can try, can’t she? If Fagus had been heir it would have been him.”

A car roared past the window. Joan tried more lemon water, but the acid stung her tongue.

McKinley closed one file and opened another. “Do you propose to continue to care for your niece, whether or not her brother is there?”

It hadn’t crossed her mind. She’d simply assumed Ian would be back.

“If you want to drive a mother mad, send her all her children,” said Pat.

“Her argument will be that she is his mother. Her man, whichever chambers take her case, will veer away from money having anything to do with it. I would suggest you send the little girl to join her brother.”

“See how she likes that,” said Pat.

“After all, from what I understand, she asked only for Ian to come to tea, is that correct?”

Joan nodded.

“And this was following the disclosure from her husband that Ian had become your heir?”

She nodded again.

“Very well, then. The case, put like that, is relatively simple. All roads point to an act of revenge, the vicious heart of a woman intent on hurt. Not care, not a mother’s love, but outright vengeance on you and your mother, and no doubt the boy’s father too.”

“Send Finetta to Fulham?”

“I fear you must,” said McKinley.

“And Fagus?”

“Who pays his school fees?”

“I do, of course.”

“Then perhaps you might have a word with the bursars. Surely it is a mother’s duty to take care of all her children?”

“No favouritism,” said Pat.