Mateo was sitting in a chair beside his father’s bed. He looked up as they entered and walked over to them. ‘Aunt.’ There was respect in his voice and Charlotte knew that what they had just learnt had changed everything. She was no Judas or Lazarus.

She squeezed his hand affectionately, looking for – and finding – the resemblance to his father. ‘My nephew.’

At the first sound of her voice—

‘Nene.’ It came from the bed, beneath the blankets which, in spite of the heat, were heavy. He was rigged up to a heart monitor and blood pressure machine, a drip dangling beside him.

‘Arlo.’ She was wheeled beside him, the same pale arm Charlotte had seen earlier as he was carried off the helicopter, stretching out again now.

Marina and Charlotte hung back, giving them privacy as they took in the sight of each other for the first time in eighty-two years: their once-plump skin now crepey and loose, strong limbs thin and spotted, the sumptuous Mendoza manes now wispy and sparse. But the eyes – had they diminished? Charlotte couldn’t see him from here but Señora Quincy still had the same, challenging stare apparent in her childhood picture.

‘I thought you would be fat,’ the señora said finally.

‘I thought you would be ugly,’ he replied.

Charlotte smiled to herself. Insults were the best start. It was manners that would be the concern.

‘Still got your teeth?’

He laughed, the sound breathy and light. ‘Barely got gums.’

The señora laughed too, her eyes raking over her big brother – older by six minutes. They were still clasping one another’s hands.

Marina jogged Charlotte with her elbow, casting her an excited sideways glance.

‘. . . Eighty-two years, Nene.’

‘I know.’ She closed her eyes and nodded. Silence filled the room. Sometimes words really couldn’t say what needed to be said. Eyes did the talking. Hands.

As if remembering them, she turned slightly, beckoning. ‘Come, Marina, meet your great-uncle. Arlo.’

Marina stepped forward, hesitantly offering a hand to one of the most powerful men in the country.

‘Come here, child.’

She leant down as he kissed her on the forehead and clasped her face between cool hands, regarding her close-up. ‘I can see him in you.’

‘Who?’ Marina asked.

‘Your grandfather.’

‘Me too. Every time,’ the señora agreed, smiling warmly and reaching over for her own kiss on her granddaughter’s cheek. ‘And you too, Charlotte. Come here. Meet my brother.’

She limped forward, feeling intrusive in the family scene. She slipped her hand into the one he was holding out but he did not shake it, merely holding it with the other one too, like the pope to a child. ‘A pleasure, sir.’

He was diminished, it was clear. His hands tremored slightly and there was a gentle droop to the left side of his face. He was almost completely bald, with even his snow-white eyebrows meagre, a wan yellowish tint to his complexion. But his eyes were the same as his sister’s: bright and direct and challenging, and from them she could superimpose who he had once been over the frail body in the bed here now.