‘He had this conviction that there was no way you could become best friends in an experience as prolonged and intense as boarding school – based on my descriptions of it, though Eton is a bit different in various ways – and suddenly not be friends years later. He kept on referring to it as an unbreakable bond. He had tracked down the housemaster and said he was going to talk to him about Sir Alan and his friendship with the prime minister . . . Are you all right? You really don’t look well.’

Kate insisted she was absolutely fine. She thanked him and left. She caught an Uber and asked it to stop about half a mile from home. She needed to clear her head.

It had started to drizzle. She stood for a moment in the darkness and let the cool water land on her cheeks, then run in tiny rivulets down her neck.

The same thoughts circled in her head until she felt dizzy.

Was Stuart telling the truth?

What had prompted Rav to become fixated on investigating Sir Alan’s past?

She walked for a while, then stopped beneath the shelter of a beech as the rain thickened. She watched it thump on to the pavement beside her. It reminded her of all those childhood days when she had sat in the kitchen with her father, waiting for the rain to cease so she could go out and climb the beech at the end of the garden.

How she yearned now for the comforting and warm certainty of his love, for his ability to magnify her hopes and banish her fears. She closed her eyes and could almost feel his arms around her, the roughness of his bristles on her cheek and the comforting smell of his aftershave.

God, she felt alone. Why had she told the children she could be friends with Stuart again, that it might work, implied that she would even consider welcoming him into the marital bed as her lover? She must have taken leave of her senses. ‘Get a grip, girl,’ she muttered, under her breath.

She straightened, heading home to what was left of the bottle of rosé – or perhaps open a second – and another hefty dose of sleeping pills.

She would have downed both at the double, but Fiona was waiting for her at the kitchen table, her bright face shining with newly found contentment. ‘I spoke to Dad!’

‘Great!’ Kate said, without thinking, as she headed for the fridge. She found she’d all but finished the half-drunk bottle earlier and fetched another from the cupboard. She filled a glass with ice and sat opposite Fiona.

‘Are you all right, Mum?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re drinking a lot and you don’t look well.’

‘Work is complicated,’ she said. But not nearly as difficult as life, she felt like adding.