Vivienne Kennedy-Craig was helped out of the Bentley outside a smart white building in the middle of Mayfair, just round the corner from Le Gavroche restaurant, a stone’s throw away from Grosvenor Square. The family owned the whole building, but were surrounded by flats and lawyers’ premises. Nowadays, full townhouses in the London borough were difficult to find, but Vivienne insisted that she didn’t want to live in a penthouse, despite it being the best real estate on the market. She didn’t care. Her five-storey Georgian townhouse in the middle of Mayfair was more desirable to her than any modern pad overlooking the Thames, or top floor of a new-build, like a lot of their associates rented these days. She was old-fashioned and enjoyed the feeling of pulling up to a front door: her front door, and owning the lot. Just recently, a foreign businessman had had the temerity to knock on the door and ask the butler if the owners would be willing to part with their home for 20 million sterling.

‘Fuck off,’ she’d instructed Terrance, her butler, to tell them. They weren’t for sale.

It was late, and the London streets were teeming with people looking for restaurants and bars, even on a Monday night. She was used to the stares from random tourists wandering through the city’s most exclusive neighbourhood, as she was escorted from the car by the driver. She ignored them. Terrance opened the huge oak front door, decorated with a fantastic Christmas wreath from Harrods.

‘Good evening, ma’am,’ Terrance purred.

Vivienne shivered and the door was closed behind her.

‘Good God, it’s freezing, I hope the fire’s on, Terry.’

‘It is, ma’am, and a glass of Faiveley red is by your chair. Ma’am, just one thing,’ he added.

She turned to him as he took her coat and gloves. The driver had brought her shopping bags in and Terrance would deal with them in good time. She turned to him.

‘The police are here, ma’am. They want to speak to you about something very important,’ he said.

‘Oh God, what has Fabian done now?’

Fabian was her and Bart’s only child. At twenty-four, he still caused them to suffer headaches and emotional turmoil over his life choices. He didn’t seem to understand the difference between right and wrong, and Vivienne blamed herself, like all mothers do, but that led to more indulgence and mollycoddling, and so the vicious cycle went on. What he really needed was to be cut off, or so Bart said, so he could discover who he really was, but Vivienne wouldn’t have it. It was one of the many things they argued about, but didn’t all parents do the same? Whatever he’d done, Vivienne would end up supporting him and Bart would shout and bang about, ruing the day he’d been born.