He sighed, softening his approach. ‘Crying into the feeds just makes their oats salty.’ He held out his hand for the food scoop she was still brandishing. ‘Let me take over here.’

She crossed it tightly in her arms, the words fired out staccato. ‘I know it might not look like it to you, but I’m trying very hard to keep what’s going on in my personal life separate from Mummy and this stud; I suggest you do the same and we’ll be just fine.’

‘My personal life has nothing to do with anyone here.’

‘C’mon, Luca, you took this job for Mummy. That’s personal.’

‘I’ve not landed five minutes!’ She had some serious trust issues with Ronnie, he’d started to realise. No matter that she was right. He’d never been able to resist her mother’s charm. ‘How come you’re so jealous of her?’

She tutted the question away. ‘And what about all the calls? The woman I answered today, who refused to give her name? Don’t tell me she’s another grandmother you’re keen on? Poor Lester’s had to field messages for days. He even took a death threat this morning.’

‘What death threat?’ Ice shot through his blood.

‘I don’t know. Do you get many?’

‘Of course not.’ He pictured Mishaal, his twisted scarred face, then forced the image away.

‘You really shouldn’t have come here, Luca. Everyone says we should sell this bloody place,’ Pax raged on, eyes wild, the façade truly cracking now. ‘I thought Mummy should be given the chance at turning it round because it’s what Grumps wanted, but she’s blowing the budget on you. This is our family’s future and you’re just breezing in like some fucking gigolo.’

‘You don’t know me.’

‘I don’t like you or trust you, either.’

‘Me and your husband both. Or is it all men you hate?’

‘You bastard!’ She hurled the feed scoop at him. Her aim was surprisingly good and it whacked him over the eye.

‘You bitch!’

‘Bastard!’

Luca’s jazz hands went up, accompanied by a piano-key smile. ‘Hey, you need to calm down.’

‘And you need to leave my marriage out of this! This is not about that! This is about hundreds of years of family history, Percy history, which I can’t stand back and let my mother screw up on some nostalgic shag-fest. All your pompous, moralising shit is so fucking phoney! You just saw pound signs and cheap thrills. Even Mummy called you “louche”. I can’t believe you had the nerve to question me about my lifestyle choices!’

Then she started shouting, real proper hysterical shouting, glass-shattering and vicious. Luca had no idea somebody so classy and British was capable of such foul language, such total fury. It would be impressive if it weren’t so relentless – and violent.

She called him Mack twice, Scottish once – and a bastard so many times he lost count. He stopped trying to shout back after a while, but he was stripped of sympathy, watching her in horror. He’d never seen emotion this raw.