‘Go and get yourself some pie and then come and entertain this young lady,’ said Fred. ‘She’s bored with me.’

‘I am absolutely not bored with you!’ said Helena indignantly. ‘But do help yourself to pie, Jago, and then join us. I want to know how you two met.’

It was a simple question and Helena said it in the bright way people do when they’re making small talk. But no one was fooled.

‘This may need a drink,’ said Jago. ‘I bought a bottle of rum. I know you like it, Fred.’

‘Not really allowed it now, but you could put a drop in my tea and no one would notice,’ he said.

‘Just more tea for me, please,’ said Helena when Jago looked at her enquiringly. ‘Oh, and ginger biscuits please. For dunking.’

‘Good idea,’ said Fred.

While Jago was away Helena smiled at Fred. ‘So you and him go back a long way?’

Fred smiled too, but shook his head. ‘I’ll let him tell you.’

There was a lot of moving small tables and shifting chairs slightly and seeing Fred was all right before Jago finally said, ‘OK. Well, it was about ten years ago, wasn’t it, Fred?’

Fred nodded. ‘Ten years. I was a relatively fit man then.’

‘And you met where?’ said Helena, who was by this time beside herself with impatience. She was crunching into ginger nuts as if they were the enemy.

‘You’d better start at the beginning, lad,’ said Fred.

‘I don’t know how much Helena knows. There’s stuff on the internet and she’ll have read that,’ said Jago.

‘You tell her,’ said Fred firmly. ‘There were a lot of lies told at the time. She’ll only hear the whole truth from you.’

‘What have you read?’ Jago asked Helena, obviously terribly unwilling to say a word more than necessary.

‘I read about the fire in the block of flats where five people were nearly killed. The fire brigade got awards for saving them. It was thought to be shoddy building work that made the fire spread once it had started. The building company – Relto – was condemned for its bad practice. The head of the company was sued for manslaughter but got off. Clever lawyers, everyone thought. The world was outraged. I actually remember it although I was quite young and didn’t pay much attention to current events.’

‘So was I,’ said Jago, ‘though I was of working age.’

‘You were just a lad, Jonathan, and they tried to blame you for everything,’ said Fred. ‘His uncle’ – Fred addressed Helena – ‘he owned the business; he was responsible. What he said, went. Young Jonathan was in quite a different part of the business. He was selling the properties that his uncle threw up.’

‘Did you work there too then, Fred?’ asked Helena.

He nodded. ‘I was on the construction side.’