He said, “Basically it’s a commonplace story. It happens everywhere. There’s nothing unusual or interesting about it except to the people concerned. Twenty-five years ago when I was thirty-eight and Candace was eighteen, she had my child. I had recently become a partner in the firm, and it was I who took over Peregrine Westhall’s concerns. They weren’t particularly arduous or interesting, but I did visit often enough to see what was happening in that large stone house in the Cotswolds where the family then lived. The frail pretty wife who made illness a defence against her husband; the silent frightened daughter; the withdrawn young son. I think at the time I fancied myself as someone interested in people, sensitive of human emotions. Perhaps I was. And when I say that Candace was frightened, I’m not suggesting that her father abused or struck her. He had only one weapon, and that the deadliest—his tongue. I doubt whether he ever touched her, certainly not in affection. He was a man who disliked women. Candace was a disappointment to him from the moment of birth. I don’t want to give you the impression that he was a deliberately cruel man. I knew him as a distinguished academic. I wasn’t frightened of him. I could talk to him; Candace never could. He would have respected her if only she’d stood up to him. He hated subservience. And, of course, it would have helped if she’d been pretty. Doesn’t it always with daughters?”

Dalgliesh said, “It’s difficult to stand up to someone if you’ve been frightened of them since early childhood.”