Now she’s waiting for Artair. The document is in a drawer in the library. The sun is cascading into the dining room and a large vase of parrot tulips is placed on the gateleg table to make the best of the light. The tulips are pink with a bluish tinge on their ragged edges. She has asked Cook to produce some of her madeleines: Artair once claimed in Brittany that he loved them, perhaps during a Proust phase, and their buttery, eggy, insistent scent is reaching her from some distance along the corridors. She has arranged some serious-looking books casually on a low table, books about music, art and so on, and removed some magazines which Artair would find absurd and trivial. She knows they are banal, but she can see the human drama in stories of Botox and divorces and the adoption of orphans by celebrities. It’s just snobbism to pretend no interest in this freak show; it is, after all, entertainment – fiction with photographs.

She sees that she’s on the spot. The mention of Morné has frightened her. How much do they know? She wonders if the family were keeping tabs on her, in order to have some cards to play in any settlement. Do they know about Bryce? What did old Simon actually say about a rugby player? And what did Julian mean by saying that Harry didn’t always know the difference between his own money and the bank’s? She’s never had anything to do with the bank, apart from going to dinners and events with Harry, but the implication is that there has been some abuse, which they are trying to sort out, and she has been given the task of putting Artair back in his box, or else.

She goes into the kitchen. Cook is transferring the madeleines from a wire rack where they have been cooling, on to a large plate; now she starts to dust them with icing sugar. She’s not the comfortable, bow-fronted, cheery kind of cook, but a businesslike, thin contemporary cook. She has made a lobster salad and – under mute protest – a chocolate pudding, Artair’s favourite. With it, he liked tinned cream and she has found some in a Greek supermarket.

‘It looks lovely, Fadila.’

‘Thank you, lady.’

‘Will you tell Luis to get a bottle of Krug up from Sir Harry’s cellar . . . My guest likes champagne.’

‘Yes, lady. It is already in the ice. You said before.’