‘After she died you couldn’t get out of Martinique fast enough.’

‘Because it hurt too much to be there. You know that.’

‘Didn’t stop you setting up this press, though. This was her dream, you remember, right? She was the writer, the one who could see that change needed a voice. Sometimes I wonder if you even loved her.’

His voice was flinty. ‘How dare you? How dare you tell me how I feel about your mother?’

‘Why not? You never talk about her. You never tell anyone about her. Do you know what it’s like when you’re the only person who remembers someone? It’s as if they never existed. You could be making it all up and no one would know. I needed you to remember her. I still need you now. Because if you’re gone then so is she.’

He withdrew, tidying up the script and filing it away.

‘I’m not going to talk to you if you get hysterical like this. I brought us to Paris because that was my decision to make as your father, and that should be more than enough reason for you.’

‘I was ten and you ripped me away from the only home I’d ever known and dumped us here where I knew no one, and no one knew my mother. And when I finally found someone who loved me, who I loved, you reported her father to the Revolutionary Tribunal.’

He sighed. ‘This again. I did my duty as a loyal citizen. Her father was a fanatic and his daughter was a corrupting influence on you.’

‘So he deserved to die?’

‘That was up to the Tribunal to decide.’

‘Convenient for you.’

‘That is the rule of law, Ada, whether you like it or not.’

For a moment, she imagined picking up the heavy paperweight on his desk and smashing it into his unfeeling face. Instead, she dropped her head into her hands.

‘You’re right. I’m a fool for coming back. I tell myself every time it will be the last, but then here I am again.’

‘You come back to me because you know your family matters.’

He swilled the dregs of his coffee around his cup and looked out into the night. The street wasn’t quiet. From the sounds of it, the gin had been flowing freely and more cheaply than bread for the starving poor of Paris. Sometimes Ada could understand why Al wanted a brandy in his hand at all times.

‘She won’t choose you,’ her father said, still looking out of the window.

‘What?’

Turning back to her, his mouth was twisted down, eyes a sombre cobalt. This wasn’t one of his usual masks.

‘That girl. I’ve seen her type before. I saw it in her father. My darling Adalaide, in the end Camille won’t choose you.’