‘How many are there?’

‘One hundred and ninety-five.’

A sleek BMW i8, a car Grace had always quite fancied, travelled past in the opposite direction at what seemed to be over the speed limit. ‘There are one hundred and ninety-three that are member states of the United Nations and just two, the Holy See and the state of Palestine, which are not. Taiwan, the Cook Islands and Niue should also be on the list, really, in my opinion.’

They were approaching the school. ‘You know what I think, Bruno, you should go on Mastermind with your specialist subject as Geography,’ he said, trying to lighten his son’s intense seriousness.

‘Why would I want to waste my knowledge on a quiz show?’ Bruno retorted calmly, but with underlying anger in his voice.

It wasn’t the first time Roy Grace had thought it, as he shot a glance at him. The boy seemed so much older than his years. Were he and Cleo badly underestimating Bruno’s intelligence? Had they put him in the wrong school? Should he be in some hot-house academy?

‘So, you know more facts than your Geography teacher – do you have other teachers where you know more than they do?’

‘Of course, all of them.’

‘Would you prefer to be in a different school?’

Bruno wasn’t yet aware of the headmaster’s threat to expel him.

‘I don’t need to be in this school, it’s a waste of my time and talents. I need to be in a school that will challenge me.’ Bruno glanced disdainfully out of the window. St Christopher’s was coming up on their right. ‘Did you know that the ancient Egyptians, when they died and were mummified, had their favourite pets killed and mummified, to go in the tomb with them?’

Grace looked at him. ‘I wasn’t aware of that, no.’

‘Do you think they did that because they wanted company in their tombs or because they worried their pets would miss them too much – or that no one would take the same care of the animals they did?’

Frowning, Grace slowed, turned into the side street, drove up a short distance before making a U-turn, and pulled up some yards short of the school gate. ‘I honestly don’t know, Bruno. Their whole culture and views on death were very different to ours.’

‘Why don’t our teachers tell us important things like that?’

Grace thought for a moment before replying to his son’s question. ‘Perhaps they don’t believe things like that are important or relevant in our modern world, Bruno.’

‘Education’s a joke, don’t you think? I can learn more from Google than any teacher can tell me.’

It took Grace a few seconds to process this. He’d not particularly enjoyed his own school days, and his performance in class had been disappointing to his parents, only just scraping through essential exams at pretty much the lowest pass grade. The reality was, he knew, that with his academic record he wouldn’t have stood a cat-in-hell’s chance of getting into the police today.