‘Which we have simply to reverse out of before planning another route forward.’

‘Well, there was one other thing I was thinking earlier,’ I said.

‘And what would that be?’ Floriano encouraged.

‘Yara made it very clear that her mistress was seriously ill. That Senhora Carvalho was dying. At the time, I thought that Yara was perhaps using this as an excuse to get rid of us. But Senhora Carvalho certainly looked frail and the table next to her was full of pill bottles. What I’m trying to say is that in Switzerland, if someone was reaching the end of their life and they were in terrible pain, they would go into a hospice. Do you have those here in Brazil?’

‘For the rich, yes, we do. As a matter of fact, there’s one just outside Rio which is run by nuns. And certainly the Aires Cabrals were a devout Catholic family. You know, Maia, you could be right.’ Floriano stood up and was just making his way across to his computer when the door burst open. A small, dark-eyed child in a Hello Kitty T-shirt and pink shorts hurtled across the room and threw herself into his arms.

‘Papai!’

‘Hello, minha pequena. How was your day?’ he asked, smiling down at her.

‘It was good, but I missed you.’

My eyes then turned to the open door where a young, willowy female was standing. Her eyes fell on me briefly and she smiled a ‘hello’, then turned back to the child. ‘Come now, Valentina, your father is busy and you need a shower. We went to the beach after school as the weather was so warm,’ the woman added to neither of us in particular.

‘Can’t I stay up here with you for a while, Papai?’ Valentina pouted as her father set her back down on the floor.

‘You go and take a shower and when you’re ready for bed, bring up your book and I’ll read the next chapter to you.’ He kissed her tenderly on the top of her dark head before nudging her gently towards the young woman. ‘See you later, querida.’

‘I must go too,’ I said, standing up as the door closed behind them. ‘I’ve taken up enough of your time already.’

‘Not until we’ve contacted the convent hospice I’m thinking of,’ said Floriano, sitting down at his laptop.

‘Your daughter is beautiful. She looks like you,’ I commented. ‘How old is she?’

‘Six,’ he replied as he tapped away on the keyboard. ‘Right, here we are. There’s a telephone number, although I doubt they’d have a manned reception at this time of night. However, I’ll try it.’

I watched him as he dialled the number from the screen into his mobile and put it to his ear. A few seconds later, he tapped it off. ‘As I thought, there’s an emergency out-of-hours number, but I think it would alert too much suspicion for us to use it. A worried relative calling a hospital when they can’t locate their nearest and dearest is one thing, but it’s pretty unlikely that close family members wouldn’t be aware that their relative had entered a hospice. So, I suggest we simply present ourselves in person there tomorrow.’