‘He said he’d been thinking,’ said Vivienne. ‘He said they might have found a way to do it in Bangladesh. But that it would need my father’s help to get a passport for the baby.’ Vivienne stared into the heart of the fire. ‘I suppose I knew there was something wrong. Why would they need my father if it was all being done by the book?’

She turned and looked Miranda straight in the eye. ‘But I didn’t care any more.’ She spoke each word with precision. ‘I didn’t care what it would take.’

‘So you rang your father?’

‘Yes.’ Vivienne raised her jaw. ‘I begged him. I pleaded.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He was furious with me,’ said Vivienne. ‘He said he could never countenance anything like that. That I should never even have asked. He put the phone down on me. And he would never do that normally . . . Never.’

‘But you called him back?’ Miranda was watching Vivienne intently.

‘The next day,’ said Vivienne. ‘I told him that Hugh – that’s my brother, he’s in Hong Kong at the moment – was never going to settle down. Not for years. Not ever, if we’re all honest with each other. And didn’t he want grandchildren? And of course my father did, desperately. But he still wouldn’t agree.’

‘Did he put down the phone again?’ Casey asked.

‘Not that time,’ said Vivienne. ‘No.’

Casey imagined it: the daughter weeping down the phone, frantic to her father. Sir William, shaking his head.

She saw him again, the old man in his tattered straw hat, in the green shade of an old olive tree.

‘Robin wasn’t sure either,’ said Vivienne. ‘He wanted to be a father, always had. But he thought we might end up in trouble. By then, Dr Greystone was promising us that the situation was under complete control. Total control, he said. Every step of the way. And so I begged Robin. In the end, I threatened my father. I know it sounds awful, but I did. I said I just wouldn’t go on . . . Couldn’t bear it . . . I half-meant it, in the end.’

That was when he snapped, Casey knew. The emotional blackmail. A lifetime of honour laid aside for his daughter.