Arun was exactly ten years Griff’s junior. They’d first worked together as young men, in the early eighties. Arun was elegant, where Griff was not, and, unlike Griff, bald now; his nut-brown, polished head was the most noticeable thing about him. He knew almost everything about Griff, but he wasn’t godfather to his children and he hadn’t been his best man. Griff had more visible characters for that.

‘We don’t have enough beds,’ said Bea.

‘There’ll be an IKEA or something, I guess,’ said Dan.

‘Beds?’ said Griff. ‘What do we want beds for? We’re not staying here. After this meeting they’ve summoned us to, we’re on our way to Chateau something or other.’ He dropped his voice. ‘But something’s happened.’

‘What’s happened?’ said Bea. ‘What now?’

‘Shall we go in, love?’ Griff took his wife’s arm.

The two of them went ahead. Arun fell into step with Bea, and spoke quietly in her ear. His voice was smooth, well used to undertone.

‘Have you seen the paper?’

‘What paper?’

‘The Daily Mail,’ said Arun.

‘No,’ said Bea. ‘Why?’

‘Your mother feels absolutely awful about it.’

‘About what?’

‘Don’t talk about me! You’re talking about me!’ said her mother, shrilly with a jerk of her head.

‘I’m so sorry.’ He pulled a folded copy of the Mail from his soft leather briefcase. ‘Don’t let Liv see,’ he whispered. ‘She’s had a terrible morning. And they were handing them out on the plane. Awful. Page 5.’

Reluctantly, Bea took the newspaper from Arun’s hand. He retreated to a tactful distance as Griff shepherded Liv up the stairs. Dan stood awkwardly, near Bea but trying not to interfere. On entering the hotel, Philip Roche stopped and took in its shambolic amateurishness with a mild, observing expression.

‘We need to be at the gendarmerie by three,’ he said, checking his watch, as Liv and Griff disappeared up the stairs.

Bea opened the newspaper. Page 5. The headline was big; sharp, black letters standing out.

SON OF PROPERTY MOGUL GRIFF ADAMSON DIES IN FRANCE Alexander Adamson has been found dead in his car in France. Distraught mother, Olivia Adamson, said: ‘It’s a mystery. Nobody knows what happened to Alex.’

There was a picture, taken years before, of a dishevelled Alex with his arm round the shoulders of someone else’s rich kid.

Bea wasn’t prepared for the violation, the roof ripped off, and crowds of people looking in, the sudden fresh loss of seeing his face, and he was transformed, by being in the paper.

The 35-year-old was the troubled son of billionaire Bernard ‘Griff’ Adamson, who first gained notoriety in the 1970s as one of London’s most ruthless slum landlords –

A picture of Griff shaking hands with a politician.