‘Have you walked out along the cliff path?’ Cavendish went on. ‘There’s a spot just along from here where it looks as if a giant took a bite out of the cliffs. Like a huge scoop of ice cream. The swifts arrive there in the spring. Thousands of them, pausing on their journey from Africa to who knows where in the north. It’s like witchcraft, watching them dip and dive. The Greeks take potshots at them, of course, especially during their Eastertime. I very much hope they don’t hit them.’

‘It’s a magical island,’ said Casey uncertainly.

‘It’s so peaceful,’ he said. ‘Busier during the summer, of course. The villas fill up with people complaining about the sewage system and the potholes, which are troublesome, of course. Terribly hot, too. Although there is usually a breeze up here.’

Cavendish looked out over the sea again. The gardens ran to the edge of the cliffs, a crumbled stone wall marking the land. Two donkeys were grazing in the next field.

‘I haven’t walked out along that path yet,’ said Casey. ‘To the cliffs.’

‘You must,’ he said. ‘You must.’

He sat down at an old stone table, waved to wooden chairs. ‘Please.’

Hessa hadn’t spoken a word. They sat down. Yesterday’s newspaper was folded neatly under a green teapot. Pale pink geraniums straggled out of chipped urns, and a stone lion, curled up nearby, had lost half of his paw.

‘Now,’ said Cavendish, almost patiently. ‘Why are you here?’

Casey turned to him, squarely.

‘I understand that you signed off on a series of passports, Sir William. Out in Dhaka. For families going through illegal surrogacy in Bangladesh.’

The silence wrapped around them, stifling as a scarf. The old ambassador’s face didn’t move.

‘That would be most improper,’ he said calmly.

‘I know,’ said Casey. ‘But I think you did it, all the same.’

‘You know I wouldn’t tell you,’ he said, ‘either way.’

A man shrouded in secrets, Casey though. Entombed, even. A lifetime of silence, fashioned into an armour that she would never pierce.

She tried, all the same.

‘Gabriel Bantham,’ she said. ‘He knew about it. And he told us. He told us everything he knew.’

A flicker of sadness crossed the old face.

‘Gabriel,’ said Cavendish, and there was almost an affection there. ‘A young man in a hurry.’

They waited.

‘I sent him off to Washington, you know.’ Cavendish said. ‘I knew he was close to the wrong people out in Dhaka, and I warned him. But I sent him to Washington. Gave him a second chance, one might say. And not everyone gets a second chance.’

And he betrayed you, Casey couldn’t say. Not that he wanted to, but he betrayed you all the same. And I can never explain why, not to you.

‘How many?’ Casey asked.

But he shook his head, waving her away like a fly.