‘Well,’ said the senator, grasping at the thread again, ‘I was coming to that. I won’t pretend to you that there aren’t problems; serious problems. In fact it would be fair to say the situation is far from easy. Not easy at all. We are experiencing certain difficulties with the child. Knowing him as you do, I imagine this will come as no surprise to you.’

‘What sort of difficulties?’ asked Isobel with a sinking heart.

‘I dare say his behavioural problems are nothing a good therapist will not be able to sort out, given time . . . and we do have a very, very good therapist back home who will advise us . . . but what we don’t have is time. Time is of the essence in our lives. We are very, very busy people.’ He paused impressively and Isobel longed to say If you’re so busy why don’t you get a move on? but managed to restrain herself. ‘I have been suggesting to Lorna,’ Brooke Congleton went on, ‘that perhaps it would be better if the boy’s father played some part in his upbringing. It seems to me that he has not shouldered his responsibilities at all so far.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Isobel. This was not what Evelyn Fergusson had led her to expect. Did he know about Giles after all?

‘I have put it to Lorna – for her consideration, you understand; naturally it must be her decision – that she should send the child back to South Africa to be raised by his father until he is more mature. Naturally Lorna would keep a watching brief.’

‘Goodness! And what does Lorna think?’ Isobel wanted to scream that Rory was not some parcel to be packed up and re-addressed every time it suited his stepfather to get rid of him, but at the same time a solution to everyone’s problems started to seem possible.

‘It’s fair to say that Lorna has not yet come round to my way of thinking over this,’ admitted the senator ponderously. ‘No doubt she will do so in due course – she is a very, very reasonable person – but at this moment in time she is unwilling to get in touch with her ex-husband and reopen old wounds. My own inclination is to have my attorney call him and suggest he should come to an accommodation with us. I find it reprehensible that he has played no part so far in rearing the boy. Lorna has never claimed a dollar from him for maintenance of the child.’