‘Ah yes, that’ll be it,’ Nathan nodded. ‘Your grandfather and uncles were killed in December 1936 – not fighting on the battlefield, but dragged from their beds and murdered. If your father signed up shortly after in ‘37, then that timing isn’t a coincidence.’

‘No, I don’t suppose it would be,’ Mateo agreed after a short pause, sitting back as Mayra came out with a steaming pot and poured him some coffee. ‘So then my father joined the war to avenge his family, his sister ran away with the enemy and that’s why they were estranged?’ He seemed almost disappointed by the anti-climactic revelation. ‘It makes sense. It just seems a shame they’ve drawn out the grudge for so long when the rest of the country has managed to move on.’ He looked into the distance wistfully for a moment. ‘Still, my father has reached out the olive branch and forgiven her. I only hope she will see the generosity of his act and behave likewise.’

Charlotte frowned as she ate her grapefruit, remembering something Señora Quincy had said to her in the bedroom yesterday.

‘Charlotte? You seem unsure,’ Mateo said, catching sight of her expression.

‘Well, it’s just that . . . your aunt said something yesterday that suggested it wasn’t your father who was the one in a position to do the forgiving.’

Mateo’s beneficent smile soured. ‘And what did she say exactly?’

‘That he may not have been why she left. But that he was the reason why she stayed away.’

There was a silence.

‘Well I would take that to imply her continuing anger that her brother fought against her husband during the war,’ Nathan said shortly.

‘Quite,’ Mateo agreed. ‘Exactly.’

‘But why be so angry at your father for that?’ Charlotte said, keeping her gaze firmly on Mateo and away from Nathan. She didn’t even want to look at him now. ‘She had run away six months earlier, before he’d even signed up. Plus she had to have known that out of the two of them, she was the one doing the “betraying” – to her family, her heritage – not him.’

‘Perhaps because she understood him to be a pacifist, learning that he was fighting at all was the betrayal,’ Mateo suggested.

‘Seems unlikely though, don’t you think?’ she asked. ‘She’s really going to hold on to that “moral disappointment” for eighty years?’

‘Oh, I think people can hold on to their moral disappointment for a lot longer than you realize,’ Nathan sneered, scorn dripping from his words as he savagely cut up a peach. He stopped suddenly. He looked at Mateo again. ‘. . . Wait – reconnaissance squadron, you said?’

‘Hmm?’ Mateo murmured, sipping his coffee.

Nathan sat back in his chair, concentrating hard, lost in thought.

‘What is it?’ Mateo asked him, setting down his cup.

Nathan was quiet for another moment, a deep frown creasing his brow. ‘I’m pretty sure . . . in fact I’m almost certain that the attack in which your aunt’s husband was killed was carried out by a recon squad.’