‘Have you seen them?’

‘What?’

‘The papers. Oh, Eva.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll read you the worst bit ... Vane, who speaks with pride of his mother’s travels through the former Yugoslavia, described multiculturalism as ... blah blah ... As for the Pakistani tutor who teaches his daughter (fifteen-year-old Zoe Brock, born of a former liaison while Mr Vane was a student) –There’s even a photograph.’

‘Of Zoe?’

‘Of Mariam.’

‘Mariam? I told him she came here for refuge. He knew she’d fled her husband—’

Eva hung up, and went downstairs to collect the Sunday papers from the porch. She hated the proliferation of reading material, the cooking supplements, the trees that were killed to inform people about the good places to travel and the right books to read. The glossy magazines were the worst. She ripped this one out of its polythene sheath.

The first thing she noticed was how lovely the house looked in winter, with the low afternoon sunshine lighting up the warm yellow stone. The second thing which caught her eye was the garden: the herbaceous borders all weeded and mulched and pruned. The third thing she saw was Mariam.

For the main spread, the photographer had captured Sebastian standing in front of the house, his hands thrust awkwardly into his pockets, in a pose which was uncharacteristic of him, but which she recognised as borrowed from a recent prime minister. It was a wide-angled shot, taking in the entire façade of Harcourt House. There in the corner, by the mahonia, standing absolutely still, bolt upright, face front – her pose characteristic of Bosnian peasants in the 1960s – was a woman in a headscarf. Eva read the caption: Mariam Maher, a recent immigrant to Britain from Pakistan, lives at the house, and works as a tutor for Sebastian Vane’s eldest daughter, Zoe.

Eva walked through to the kitchen and, with trembling hands, dialled her son’s number.

‘Mariam’s in the magazine.’

‘Mum,’ said Sebastian. He sounded upbeat. ‘The guys liked her. Thought she would add some local—’

‘She’s staying with me because she’s run away from her husband. She’s in hiding.’

‘Oh come on, Mum.’

‘Camille must have told you. Sebastian, what were you—’

‘Stop being so anxious.’

‘She came to me for refuge.’

‘It looks great. It’s a great interview. It shows your hospitality and ours. It’s like a symbol of Britain—’

Eva put down the phone. She was shaking. She walked over to the window and pushed it open. Despite the cold, she stood there for a long time, looking up at the sky, feeling the anger she had been trying to contain almost her entire life, fly upwards, turning and wheeling and cawing. It was no good trusting any more that everything would come right on its own; such optimism was foolish.

She emailed her solicitor that moment, standing right there, tapping into her phone: telling him she would be in the following morning, first thing, to make an important change to her will.