Tom had drifted in and out of sleep – as Celestria had said, seemingly comforted by their presence. Jazz watched her mother across the bed. Her eyes were drooping as she sat there and she was chalk white.

‘Mum,’ Jazz whispered.

Celestria jumped and her eyes opened wide with fear. Jazz realised she had been dozing.

‘Mum, please will you take a break, and have something to eat and drink? The nurse has just said Dad’s stable and I’ll be here with him if he wakes up.’

Celestria looked at her watch and saw it was ten to five. She nodded. ‘All right. I’ll be in the canteen, if—’

‘Yes, I know where you’ll be, but we’ll be fine, won’t we, Daddy?’ As Celestria took her hand away from Tom’s, Jazz grasped his other hand in hers and held it tightly.

‘I won’t be long,’ Celestria said softly. She cast a last fond glance at her husband, then walked towards the exit.

Jazz watched her father as he slept, then let her mind drift off to the case. She wondered how Issy had got on with Rory and whether they’d found David Millar yet.

She had to assume both her own and Issy’s instincts were right and he was innocent. She tried to focus on the connection between Charlie and Hugh Daneman.

Charlie: Corin Conaught’s nephew.

Hugh: Corin’s – Cory’s – supposed lover from many years ago.

Had Charlie known that Hugh had been close to the uncle who had died long before he was born?

Adele Cavendish, Charlie’s mother, meeting with her brother Edward to discuss what they would do with the estate now that Charlie was gone and there were no direct heirs.

Was she missing something?

Perhaps Corin’s mother could help shed some light on the subject. However, from the way Edward had described her, Emily Conaught sounded very frail. And as such, perhaps not a reliable source of information.

She felt a slight pressure on her hand and turned to see her father, his eyes wide open, smiling at her from beneath the mask.

She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. ‘Hello, Daddy. Nice sleep?’ she whispered in his ear.

He nodded slightly, then turned his head to the left looking for Celestria.

‘I sent her off to get something to eat. She’s had nothing all day. Are you feeling okay?’

Tom nodded slightly again, then looked as if he wanted to say something, and shook his head in frustration.

‘Just keep calm, Daddy, you won’t have this mask on for much longer. I have to say, you do look rather ridiculous in it. All you need now is a large pair of grey floppy ears.’

Tom rolled his eyes in agreement. He extricated his hand from Jazz’s and made writing signs in the air.

‘You want a pen and some paper?’

Tom gave the thumbs-up.

Jazz dug in her handbag for a pen and fished out her notebook. She placed the pen in one hand and the open notebook in the other. With effort, Tom managed to move the pen to the paper and began to write.