The detective looked at her.

‘You’re surprised that I, a Hindu, should know the Bible and Shakespeare, aren’t you? My father sent me to Roedean, so I would become an English lady. But I never got a look at my own birthright.’ Now she was furious.

‘None of this makes any sense to me,’ Gillard said, shaking his head.

‘Aha. Morag has that effect on men. It’s a kind of charm, an innocence. So pale, so pure, so slender…’ She looked out of the window again. ‘She secreted the boy away in an expensive school where no one would find him. No one knew who the father was, nor where the money came from to support him. But I’ve found out.’

‘You’re quite the detective, aren’t you?’

She turned to him. ‘The father of that child is my brother Harry.’

‘How do you know?’

‘There are ways, detective chief inspector. Scientific ways. There’s a great fat inheritance awaiting him, once Morag marries Harry.’

Gillard shook his head. ‘The child wasn’t born in wedlock, was he? That’s what the trust codicil stipulates.’

Now it was Prisha’s turn to be amazed. ‘What do you know about the codicil?’

‘I’m a detective. It’s my job. Even when it’s written in Gujarati.’

She folded her arms, as if offended. ‘There’s room for interpretation in the codicil. The trustees are the judges. They can be swayed.’

‘So why are you blaming Morag for the murder rather than Harry? Surely if your theory is correct, they would be equally complicit?’

She snorted with contempt. ‘He hasn’t got it in him. He has no streak of ruthlessness. And of course he simply adored his mother, so he would never have done it.’

‘But you think she would?’

Prisha fiddled with the car ventilator, directing the air conditioning to suit her. ‘I suppose you think I’m terrible, making all these accusations which I can’t really substantiate. But you did ask me. I feel it’s my duty to protect my brother, because he’s helpless, truly he is.’

‘So why was it that you were driving like a maniac last night – was it simply because of a row?’

She said nothing for a while, and then looked out of the window and muttered: ‘I’m fed up with the uselessness of the men in my life. The laziness, the stupidity, the ineptitude. I’ve sort of got used to that, but they can’t produce a single working sperm, out of millions and millions.’

‘I see. So you are trying for a boy yourself?’

She glared at him as if to dare him to pry further, but he said nothing. The look persisted. Eventually, she fished a lipstick out of her bag and applied it to a full-lipped pout, without mirror. Her question was dropped casually, like small talk.

‘So, do you have any children, detective chief inspector?’

He turned to her slowly. His enunciated reply answered her question and more. ‘No.’ He was definitely not going to mention Sam’s pregnancy.

A small impish grin flashed across her face as she spoke. ‘I’m a little sorry for you then. Poor defective chief inspector.’