‘My dear, she has pneumonia. I’m afraid that’s going to be one of the main hazards from now on. I think we should get her into hospital straight away. Is your father here?’

‘He’s trying to get back from Geneva. Stuck at the airport in fog.’

‘Well, I’m sure you’ll want to stay with her. This doesn’t look so good.’

In the hospital Camilla sat in a stiff, upright chair beside the bed, her fists clenched, her jaw clamped tight to prevent her teeth from chattering. She did not want to deal with this by herself, did not want to be alone with her mother when she died. It was too frightening, too solitary to bear. Marina turned her head and opened her eyes, glittering with fever and pain, her breath short.

‘My chest hurts so much. I think it’s the end, darling, because it’s too hard to keep breathing. And I can’t struggle like this. I can’t do it. Where is he? Hasn’t he come yet?’ Her whispered entreaty was pitiful, and she tried to find Camilla’s hand and to touch it in an appeal for comfort and even reassurance.

‘He’s on his way, but his plane’s delayed. Just rest, Mother. He’ll be here soon. Very soon.’

When the nurses arrived with a trolley Camilla cringed as they tried to transfer Marina without causing her any further distress. But each movement was a separate agony and the brief journey to the X-ray department became a series of unbearable moments as they rumbled along the shining corridors. A potent injection had been administered to deaden the pain that now filled Marina’s chest, making each breath a gasping, faltering effort that Camilla thought would be her last.

‘I’m afraid she has double pneumonia,’ David Ward said, when he reappeared an hour later. ‘And I honestly don’t know if she has the strength to deal with the infection. She’s terribly weak already. But we’re starting her on antibiotics right now. And then we can only wait and see.’