‘So what did you want to discuss with me?’ she asked.

‘I’m making a major change in my own life,’ George said. He hesitated, poured them some wine and lit a cigar. There was a long silence and she waited, puzzled. ‘I’m leaving the Foreign Office,’ he said, at last. ‘I’ve resigned.’

‘What?’ Camilla was incredulous. ‘But you love your job, Daddy. It’s your life. They must be about to make you a governor or a high commissioner or something, surely? Why on earth would you leave now?’ He did not answer immediately and she saw that he was formulating his reply. ‘No, don’t tell me,’ she said. ‘This is about Mother. I know it is. She’s persuaded you to do this. It’s about money, isn’t it?’

She stared at him hard, her eyes demanding an answer, her instinct telling her that she was right. His gaze wavered, and then she could clearly see Marina in the nightclub. Marina, creating a scandal that had forced his resignation. But she did not dare to ask any further questions, because she could not be sure that he knew about Winston Hayford.

‘This is nothing to do with your mother.’ George was looking at her directly now. ‘I’ve accepted an interesting job in the private sector. Something with more scope.’

‘More scope than changing the face of the world? I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s a challenging position.’ He was quietly insistent. ‘I’m going to run an international fund for wildlife and the environment. It’s a job that will take me all over the world. But I’ve been given special responsibility for East Africa, because of the years I’ve spent there. These new governments have very little money for national parks and conservation, and they have a crisis, particularly in Kenya. There are huge numbers of elephants being slaughtered by bandits coming across the Somali border, and by ivory hunters in other areas. And the rhino population has been butchered to the point where they’ll become extinct if something isn’t done.’

‘But money like that simply disappears into greedy pockets, because of corruption. You’ve often said so yourself.’

‘I’m going to control a fund that can be administered properly, where money goes directly to a supervised project and not into the national kitty. I’m very keen on the whole thing.’ He tried to draw some sign of enthusiasm out of his daughter, but she did not respond. ‘The foundation has a flat in Nairobi that I can use when I’m there.’