‘Aha.’ Triumphantly Peggy handed me a cardboard file. The first piece was on Kattan and his polo team in the late eighties, a very young Ash proudly wearing polo gear. I saw the insignia, the monogram, and I remembered the sign from the horses Dalziel and I had ridden at midnight such a long time ago. They had co-owned a polo team, Kattan and Higham, but I’d learned that much already. I felt a crash of disappointment.

‘Is this it?’ I said. ‘You’re so kind, but – I’m not sure – I think I’ve seen it.’ It was one of the pieces I’d found last time I was here.

Impatiently Peggy pulled something from behind it, pushing her raffish glasses on top of her head to peer at it.

‘You did say Huriyyah, didn’t you?’ She jabbed a gnarly finger at a tiny face. ‘I wasn’t going to forget that name in a hurry.’

On a rather crumpled piece of yellowing A4, there was a tiny photo of a glamorous young couple, an article from the society pages of Harpers & Queen, marked 1990, the bright colours faded, the edge slightly torn.

‘It means Angel you know, in Arabic, Huriyyah,’ Peggy said conversationally.

Huriyyah, wearing a midnight-blue evening dress, mouth wide and broad in a great smile of happiness. And with his arm around her proudly, head slightly tipped towards his lover, the look on his face unmistakable, straight-backed and debonair for one so young, Ash Kattan. Behind them a group of people, laughing, drinking cocktails.

And then a tiny article clipped from one of the broadsheets, dated December 1994.

Omar Rihad and his family have left the official residence in Kensington and returned home after the tragic and sudden death of eldest daughter Huriyyah, 24. Mr Rihad has worked as a diplomat in London for the past 7 years for the Emirate government. British envoy Lucas Johns extended his deepest sympathies, and in an unusual move, Lord Higham attended the funeral on behalf of the Prime Minister. It is his last official engagement before he also leaves British shores. Mr Rihad’s successor has yet to be announced.

Nothing was mentioned about the way she’d died. I felt an intense wave of nausea.

Huriyyah Rihad, dead at twenty-four, Christmas 1994, two years after the implosion of Society X. I would have been in India by then, sweating in Goa, planning my trip up to Rajasthan, newly graduated. I was busy finding myself, setting out on my new adventure … and she was lying cold in a morgue.

Peggy jabbed at the page again with her cerise fingernail. ‘They tried to cover it up, but it was suicide or drug overdose, I’m fairly sure of it. I remember it now from the Express news-desk.’

‘Really?’