If that was how Ingrid Richards wanted to organize her work, fine. From the Health and Safety point of view, though, perhaps not so good.

In spite of her weather-beaten skin and the scar, Ingrid remained a fine-looking woman. Casually dressed in a floppy white linen shirt and well-cut jeans, she certainly had style. And, though in her seventies, her long slender figure was almost girlish.

Then there was the hair. Red. And the residual freckles suggested it had always been red. Surely no longer unaided, but she’d employed a highly skilled colourist.

The more I saw of Ingrid Richards, the more familiar she looked. Alexandra had told me her mother was famous and I was kicking myself for not Wikipediaing her before I left home.

Ingrid looked me directly in the eyes. I got the feeling she hadn’t got another way of looking at people. ‘Obviously, I know why you’re here,’ she said. Her voice was firm and confident, occasionally slackening to something approaching American. She went on, ‘At the behest of my censorious daughter.’

‘Is she censorious?’

‘Oh, I think so. Most of that generation are. Do you have children?’

‘Two. Girl and boy, in that order.’

‘And is your daughter censorious?’

‘No, I don’t think I’d call her that.’

‘Then what would you call her?’

‘Self-sufficient, maybe …? Uncommunicative, certainly.’

‘Hm.’ She screwed up her eyes. They were, I’d noticed, amber-coloured, flecked with something darker. Lion’s eyes. ‘I sometimes wish Alexandra would show a bit more self-sufficiency.’

I was about to respond but Ingrid got in her question first. I saw why I had been told that the encounter would be an interview. ‘Are you married to the father of your children?’

‘I was,’ I replied.

‘“Was”? Divorced?’

‘He died.’

‘Ah. And what did he do before he died?’

‘He was a cartoonist.’

‘Would I have heard of him?’

‘His name’s Oliver Curtis.’ I still had a problem putting his life into the past tense.

She shook her head. The name meant nothing to her.

Instinctively, I went to Oliver’s defence. ‘He did the “Major Cock-Ups” strip. And “Teddy Blair”. “Riq and Raq” …?’

‘God, yes. I remember those. Very sharp. He understood politics. Really got under the skin of those losers Major and Blair.’ She looked at me with new respect for a moment, then quickly moved on. ‘I married twice. It didn’t take. Either time.’

‘Ah.’

‘You show remarkable restraint,’ Ingrid observed perceptively, ‘in not asking which of my husbands contributed to Alexandra’s appearance.’

I didn’t deny that that was what I had been wondering.

‘Well, it was neither of the husbands,’ she said, larding the word with contempt, ‘but there’s no secret about it. Are there any secrets at all in these days of Wikipedia?’

I felt even more guilty for not having looked her up.

‘Alexandra,’ she went on, ‘was the result of a brief and ill-advised skirmish with Niall Connor.’

She said the name as if I ought to know it. And it did sound familiar, though I couldn’t be sure of the context. To do with newspapers perhaps …?