He reaches across and turns the soldier figure on the table so that he’s looking towards us. The man’s face is still a blank pale pink, but much of the uniform is finished. He has a white coat with red collar, cuffs and tail trim and two rows of gold buttons. There’s a gold cummerbund around his waist and, below it, cream trousers, black boots and a sword with a silver hilt and black sheath.

‘Lovely,’ Brian says.

He holds out a hand and Simon places a magnifying glass in it. Brian takes time to scrutinise the soldier.

‘Lovely,’ he says again. ‘Not sure you’ve got the medal ribbon right.’ He extends the little finger of his magnifying glass hand and hovers it near the soldier’s chest. ‘I think, from the shape of the cross, it might be the Military Order of Maria Theresa. So, red-and-white ribbon. Uniform’s terrific, though.’ He hands me the magnifying glass. ‘You need to take a look. This bloke’s very unusual. It’s very rare to see a model of a senior cavalry officer who isn’t on his horse, and who isn’t wearing anything on his head. And I don’t think he’s any common scale. We tested him against some other figurines. He’s slightly larger than one-thirty-two scale, but smaller than one-twenty-four. King & Country do some figures in one-thirty, but I’m not sure it’s even that. We could ask Andy Neilson, but I’m confident this chap isn’t on their inventory. And they only started in the eighties. He’s much older, obviously.’

Simon interrupts him. ‘Andy Neilson’s the owner of King & Country. They make metal miniatures. Quality stuff. They’re in Hong Kong.’

‘One-twenty-eight?’ Brian says. He holds his index finger up against the figure. ‘Midori, Revell, SpecCast – they do cars in one-twenty-eight. No-one does soldiers. Not that I can think of. It might even be bigger than that. Somewhere between one-twenty-eight and a G-scale train set, and that’s not a thing.’

Simon places the figurine I’ve brought next to his painted cavalry officer.

‘Until now,’ Brian says. ‘Not a thing until now. Is it just me, or are they the same scale?’ He holds the magnifying glass up to the two of them. ‘What do you know about this bloke of yours?’

‘Well, just the Napoleon idea,’ I tell him. ‘And that he’d been in the family quite a while, I think. But, you know, his arm’s not in his—’

‘Don’t say it . . .’ Brian clunks the edge of the magnifying glass down onto the bench.

‘I know that wasn’t a thing . . .’ I want to stop him before he can lecture me. ‘I know Napoleon didn’t get around with his hand in his waistcoat all the time. I just googled “Napoleon figurine” once and most of the images that came up had his hand there.’

‘Of course they did.’ Brian manages to sound even more world-weary than usual. ‘And who painted the portrait responsible for that little piece of caricature?’