‘My husband Hari was the obvious one to ask. He decided to come with us. All three of us travelled to Hames together.’

‘Was this before Lew was murdered?’ Spoder said.

‘About two years before,’ Jeksid said. ‘We had the best interests of everyone at heart. Lew and Dever were obviously arguing about what to do: they both wanted the money for themselves. At first we suggested a three-way split, but I kept being reminded of what Raffe was supposed to have said. It was Hari who came up with a solution.’

‘He suggested setting up a tontine,’ I said.

‘A what?’

Both Jeksid and Frejah looked blank, and Spoder shook his head.

‘You created a tontine. That’s an investment shared equally between a number of different people, each of whom has to sign a binding agreement confirming the deal.’

‘We bought into an AMBA,’ Frejah said. ‘Not – whatever you said it was called.’

‘It’s known legally as a tontine. The AMBA is just the kind of capital growth fund in which you invested the tontine – I assume Hari had some information about that?’

‘He said he knew a professional outfit on Raba who would set it up for us. It was all above board, nothing illegal.’

‘I never said it was illegal.’

‘So how does it work?’ Spoder said.

I said: ‘Everyone has to agree absolutely to the terms.’ I said to Frejah and Jeksid: ‘Is that what happened?’

‘Eventually, yes. Lew and Dever agreed to it because we pointed out that they were the youngest of the five of us.’

‘That’s my understanding,’ I said. ‘Tontines are sometimes set up to benefit children. Once the agreement has been made, everyone has an equal share in the money. They all receive the same regular annuity as income. It’s at a much higher rate than would be produced by a normal investment. If one of the signatories dies, that particular share is then redistributed to the others. The survivors’ annuities increase, but also their share of the capital. In your case, you all owned one-fifth of the equity at the start, but as soon as anyone died that share would increase to one quarter each. After the next one dies, it would increase to a third each. Your plan, I think, was that in the end Lew and Dever would survive the three of you and receive a half each of the investment, which because of the amount of time that had passed would be much larger. The last one alive receives everything.’

‘But what happens when he or she dies?’ Spoder asked.

‘The investment bank keeps everything that’s left. But by then there will be none of the tontine members left to care. They lived well on the annuities, but they no longer have any interest in the capital sum.’

‘Used to live well on,’ Jeksid said sourly. ‘Because of your intervention, the fund has collapsed. Not a cent more is likely from it.’