I suppose I should explain briefly for those of you who are confused at my having a grandfather who lived in a semidetached house with gnomes in the front garden, and not in a palace. My father was Queen Victoria’s grandson but he had married my mother, a famous actress and the daughter of a London policeman. For that reason I had been kept from meeting my grandfather until I was grown-up. Since then I had made up for lost time and absolutely adored him. I think that he was the one person who loved me unconditionally (apart from Darcy, that is).

I rang the doorbell and prayed that he too wasn’t out. At least he was not likely to have gone away anywhere. If he wasn’t home it would only be shopping in the high street. I held my breath but then the front door opened and there he was.

“Hello, Granddad,” I said.

A big smile spread across his face. “Well, blow me down with a feather,” he said. “The last person I expected to see, my love. What are you doing here? Nothing wrong, is there?”

“No, of course not. Everything’s perfect. I came to surprise you,” I said. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

He sucked air through his teeth, clearly embarrassed, making me wonder for a second if he had a woman in there. “I’d love to, ducks, but you see I was just . . .”

That’s when I noticed that he was dressed in a suit and was wearing polished shoes instead of his slippers. What’s more, his hair was slicked down with bay rum.

“Oh dear,” I said. “Have I caught you at a bad time?”

“I’m afraid you have, my love,” he said. “You see, I’m due at my old police station in Hackney within the hour. I told my old guv that I’d be there and I can’t let him down.”

“You haven’t gone back to work, surely?”

He gave me a challenging look. “What, you think the old geezer is past it, do you?”

“No, of course not,” I said hastily. “It’s just that you’ve been retired for some time and . . .”

He put a big hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right, ducks. ’old your ’air on. I’m not back on the force. Just doing a bit of volunteer work. My old guv has started a scheme to keep the young folk in the area out of mischief. Get ’em while they are young. That’s his philosophy. And he came to me and asked if I’d have time to help him out with it. So of course I jumped at the idea. It’s bloomin’ boring rattling around in this house all day with nothing to do and no one to talk to.”