Help-yourself serving dishes were spread on an antique sideboard. Entrées of salmon, fennel, avocado and orange were in one bowl; pork belly, miso, red cabbage, sesame and grapes in another. The variety of food had an enticing aroma and had Cavalier salivating. He took the salmon; Bleulance, the pork belly.

They sat opposite each other. James appeared and poured them both a crimson Bordeaux. Bleulance made great play of sniffing, swirling and swallowing some of the seductive liquid.

‘I hope you like it,’ Cavalier said, deadpan. ‘Embarrassing if you send it back.’

Bleulance pretended to ignore the flippant remark. James smirked and said, ‘We have twenty-five thousand bottles of all vintages and labels in the cellar, sir.’ This drew a frown of disapproval from his master.

‘You must have fun down there, then,’ Cavalier said. James stifled a smile. ‘I meant counting them. Or playing spin the bottle, perhaps?’

James made himself scarce, while Cavalier took a sip and gave it the thumbs up.

‘Tell me, Doctor Harris,’ Bleulance said, ‘what are you intending to write about me?’

‘Your art interests, of course. I would like to discuss your father as well. Just to make the piece topical.’

‘Oh?’

‘Are you agreeable?’

‘It depends.’

‘There is now evidence that he spied for the KGB during World War Two when in exile in England, and afterwards.’

Bleulance looked away, pulled a slight face, and asked, ‘You mean the Serov diaries?’

‘You’ve heard about them?’

‘There was speculation in a French paper.’

‘I’ve read the translated diaries.’

‘Translated by whom? The Russians or the British?’

‘The British had access to the original diaries.’

‘Hmm,’ Bleulance said, swirling the wine so it glistened under the chandelier umbrella. He seemed unperturbed. ‘I trust neither of them.’

‘I believe they are authentic. I was wondering what you thought, Baron.’

‘Oh, good heavens! I know little about the espionage world. I have not a jot of interest in it.’

‘You had no inkling that your father may have been a double agent?’

‘We were not close. My mother left him for a Spanish painter and I regarded him as my father figure.’

‘You were never aware of your father’s proximity to Sir Anthony Blunt, the art curator and buyer for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth?’

‘Blunt was a Francophile. He came to our home on occasions,’ Bleulance said. ‘He never related to me at all. I did go to a lecture of his at London’s Courtauld Institute. Never spoke to him.’ Bleulance brightened a fraction. ‘I am now a benefactor there.’

There was a longish pause before Bleulance asked if the food was to Cavalier’s liking. He smiled and nodded.

‘I was more thinking about your instincts about your father,’ Cavalier said. ‘Sons are pretty good at observing their fathers’ behaviour and foibles over time.’

‘And your father, Doctor Harris? What was his profession?’