Rosa has a throaty laugh, a tribute to half a lifetime on the roll-ups. Ivan, Pavel’s son, teaches world literature at the University of Western Australia in Perth. He turned up in London a couple of months ago to attend a conference. Pavel’s obituary, and then a call to Rosa, brought Ivan to my apartment, where I was only too happy to share a story or two about the father he’d never known. That afternoon has stayed with me ever since, partly because Ivan’s smile and playful intelligence brought Pavel back to life, and partly because he left with the knowledge that his father’s estate was worth at least three and a half million pounds. When I share this news with Rosa, of course she isn’t surprised.

‘Five,’ she says briskly, ‘at least. I’m told the French have just come in with a huge rights bid on that Huguenot costume series he did way back, and Pavel’s agent is expecting something similar from the Canadians. Have you talked to Claude recently?’

‘No.’

‘Then maybe you should.’ Claude Ransome was Pavel’s solicitor, and is now acting as executor for his estate.

‘This missing gem …’ I say, wanting to change the subject. ‘I don’t even know where to start.’

‘His house, maybe? The one in Chiswick?’

‘It’s gone. Sold.’

‘That place you bought him down in the West Country?’

‘That went, too.’

‘That laptop of his?’

I nod, but say nothing. Before he went blind, Pavel used to write on an Apple MacBook, an object to which he was fond of ascribing almost supernatural powers. A decent bottle of Chablis plus Steve Jobs, he used to say, are the twin keys that will open any fictional door. Latterly, paralysed as well as blind, Pavel acquired a significantly expensive piece of software that would turn speech and dictated stage directions into screen text. This MacBook, I still have.

‘I can take a look,’ I tell Rosa. ‘No promises, though. You knew the man. He buried everything. Layers and layers of deceit, and that was just for the day-to-day stuff. Something like this, something he really wanted to hide, you’d need to be an archeologist, not a muse.’

Rosa grunts something I can’t make out. Then she asks whether I’ve recovered.

‘From?’

‘Your Dutch beau, my precious. The way I heard it, you were lucky to get out of that pub alive. Am I right? Or is this all hearsay?’

‘You’re right.’

‘And might I get the whole story one day?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Sleeping dogs?’

‘I’m afraid so. What’s done …’ I muster a shrug. ‘Is done. The bloody man’s dead. That’s all you need to know.’

‘Really?’ Rosa doesn’t bother to mask her disappointment. ‘And that’s all I get?’

‘That’s all you need. I’m off to Devon again.’

‘Exmouth?’