She said, “Tell me about your cousins.”

“They’re comfortably off, at least by my standards, and about to be very rich by anyone’s standards. Their father, my Uncle Peregrine, died nine months ago and left them about eight million between them. He inherited from his father, Theodore, who died only a few weeks before him. The family fortune came from him. You have probably heard of T. R. Westhall’s Latin Primer and First Steps in Learning Greek—something like that anyway. I didn’t come across them myself, I wasn’t at that kind of school. Anyway, textbooks, if they become standard, hallowed by long use, are amazingly good earners. Never out of print. And the old man was good with money. He had the knack of making it grow.”

Rhoda said, “I’m surprised there’s so much for your cousins to inherit with two deaths so close together, father and grandfather. The death duties must have been horrendous.”

“Old Grandfather Theodore had thought of that. I told you he was clever with money. He took out some form of insurance before his last illness started. Anyway, the money’s there. They’ll get it as soon as probate is granted.”

“And you’d like a part of it.”

“Frankly, I think I deserve a part of it. Theodore Westhall had two children, Peregrine and Sophie. Sophie was my mother. Her marriage to Keith Boyton was never popular with her father; in fact, I believe he tried to stop it. He thought Keith was a gold-digging indolent nonentity who was only after the family money, and to be honest he probably wasn’t far wrong. Poor Mummy died when I was seven. I was brought up—well, it was more like being dragged around—by my dad. Anyway, in the end he gave up and dumped me into that Dotheboys Hall of a boarding school. An improvement on Dickens, but not much. A charity paid the fees, such as they were. It was no school for a pretty boy, particularly one with the label charity child hung round his neck.”

He was grasping his wineglass as if it were a grenade, his knuckles white. For a moment Rhoda feared that it would shatter in his hand. Then he loosened his grip, smiled at her and raised the glass to his lips. He said, “From the time of Mummy’s marriage, the Boytons were cut off from the family. The Westhalls never forget and they never forgive.”

“Where is he now, your father?”

“Frankly, Rhoda, I haven’t the slightest idea. He emigrated to Australia when I won my scholarship to drama school. We haven’t been in touch since. He may be married or dead or both, for all I know. We were never what you’d call close. And he didn’t even support us. Poor Mummy learnt to type and went out to earn a pittance in a typing pool. An odd expression, ‘typing pool.’ I don’t think they have them now. Poor Mummy’s was particularly muddy.”

“I thought you said you were an orphan.”