‘Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if you did get cash stolen,’ I told her frankly. ‘You will leave your wallet lying around …’ I shook my head. ‘I just find it incredible that you’d rather sack me than tell me the truth.’ Actually, I did understand. The fear of humiliation, the avoidance of embarrassment, is a far stronger force than most of us are prepared to admit.

Verbena’s eyes swam with tears again. She heaved a truly tragic sigh. ‘I felt so ashamed, about the girls …’

I’d been trying hard not to feel sorry for her, but now I did. She wiped her eyes with a tissue, making black smudges beneath her lower lashes. ‘I don’t care about the bloody earrings … or the money. It’s the fact that they were prepared to steal from me to please their father … The truth is, not even my own children like me …’ She blew her nose and subsided into sniffling sobs.

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ I told her gently. It was a lie. I’d never met her daughters and I wasn’t sure at all. They were always at school when I came to clean. I only knew the kind of mess they left lying around. But it must be a horrible thing not to be able to trust your own kids.

‘I didn’t want to wear the earrings again,’ she sniffed. ‘I couldn’t bear the sight of them. I wanted to sell them, but I didn’t want anyone to know. I was frightened Neil might find out.’ She gave a bitter little laugh. ‘They’d been made for a famous rock star to give to his dolly chick. Their provenance was more interesting than the earrings themselves. I knew if I put them on the open market they’d arouse a lot of interest, that he’d find out …’

‘But I don’t understand. Why did it matter if he found out you were selling them? You’re divorced, the earrings were yours.’

‘Well, that’s just it …’ she said awkwardly. ‘The divorce was so bloody … In the turmoil, somehow … when everything was being declared for the settlement – and I mean, everything − they got missed out. I realised Neil had forgotten them.’ She gave a nervous giggle like a schoolgirl caught cheating in an exam. ‘He’d bought me so much jewellery over the years. He liked to make extravagant gestures, especially public ones …’

‘So he forgot about these earrings and you didn’t want to remind him.’

‘Exactly. I needed someone to sell them for me, someone who’d be discreet …’

‘So you went to Nick?’ I finished for her.