Unfortunately, it also meant that a regular source of income had dried up. She wouldn’t have considered visiting Mellor in prison if her bank manager hadn’t kept reminding her about her overdraft. She could only hope that Mellor was still capable of turning red into black, despite being behind bars.

Virginia wasn’t altogether certain what Mellor had been charged with. But she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Adrian Sloane was involved somehow.

She drove down to Arundel just after breakfast as she didn’t want anyone to spot her on the train or taking a taxi to Ford Open Prison. She was a few minutes late by the time she drove into the car park but then she’d never intended to be on time. Spending an hour surrounded by a bunch of villains wasn’t her idea of how to spend a Sunday afternoon.

After she’d parked her Morris Minor, Virginia made her way to the gatehouse, where she was met in reception by a prison officer. Once she’d been searched, she was asked for proof of her identity. She handed over her driving license to show she was the Lady Virginia Fenwick, even if the photograph was out of date. The officer ticked her name off the authorized visitors’ list, then handed her a key and asked her to deposit all her valuables in a small locker, before she was politely warned that any attempt to pass cash to a prisoner during a visit was a criminal offense and she could be arrested and end up with a six-month jail sentence. She didn’t tell the officer that she was rather hoping it would be the other way around.

Once she had been handed a key and placed her handbag and jewelry in the small gray locker, she accompanied a female officer down a long, fiercely lit corridor before being ushered into a sparsely furnished room with a dozen or so tables, each surrounded by one red and three blue chairs.

Virginia spotted Desmond sitting on a red chair in the far corner of the room. She walked across to join him, her first sentence already prepared.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” Virginia said, as she took the seat opposite him. “And I’d just heard from his grace the duke of Hertford that your knighthood—”

“Cut the crap, Virginia. We’ve only got forty-three minutes left, so let’s dispense with the platitudes and get down to why I needed to see you. How much do you know about why I’m in here?”

“Almost nothing,” replied Virginia, who was just as relieved as Desmond that the case hadn’t been reported in the national press.