Fiona and Gus glanced at each other and then, brows furrowed, stared at the table. Gus’s helmet hair had not had sight of a brush on this trip and looked as if he had shoved his fingertips into an electric socket.

When Fiona looked up, her expression was defiant. ‘Why you?’

Why indeed? Kate thought. ‘Because he says I have no desire to prove his innocence, so if I do, it’ll be widely believed.’

‘Is that true?’

‘It has a certain logic. There’s also some new intelligence.’

‘What kind?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’ She glanced at Stuart. She couldn’t tell him either, of course, but he knew better than to ask.

‘So, if you do this,’ Fiona said, ‘then—’

‘If I do what they ask of me, then Dad would not only be able to come to France, Spain or Italy, but the UK too.’

Their eyes widened. Fiona couldn’t – perhaps wouldn’t – believe it. Gus looked as if he was about to burst into tears.

‘Yes,’ she said, responding to the almost palpable drift in her son’s thoughts. ‘He could be watching you playing cricket next summer.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘And – when the time comes – he could walk you down the aisle in any church in England.’

‘Or Scotland,’ Stuart said. ‘And make a very long and embarrassing speech.’

Kate smiled. ‘Don’t push your luck.’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Fiona said. Now she, too, looked as if she would burst into tears and run from the table at any moment.

Was it joy or confusion she saw in her daughter’s eyes? ‘Don’t believe what?’ Kate asked.

‘Everything. Everything you’re telling us.’

‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’

Neither answered. ‘Will it be dangerous,’ Gus asked, ‘what they’re asking you to do?’

Kate again considered dressing it up – and decided against it. Perhaps the time for that really was past. ‘Possibly. But not, I think, on the same scale as anything we’ve already been through.’

‘How can you be sure?’

Kate leant forward, elbows on the table. ‘Look, I understand you’re still devastated by what happened to you with those horrible Albanians. It was extremely traumatic. And I’d love to be able to honour my promise to leave it all behind. But I think the cost of doing so – your father’s permanent exile – is too great. And the upside is that, if I can find a way through this – and I reckon I can – we can have everything we want.’

Fiona and Gus didn’t know where to look.

‘You’re going to have to trust me,’ Kate said. ‘I know I’ve let you down before, but I sure as hell don’t intend to this time.’

‘It wasn’t you who let us down.’

Kate tried hard to hide her surprise. This was the first time since Stuart’s betrayal and exile that she’d ever heard a word of criticism of him pass her daughter’s lips. Stuart’s cheeks reddened. ‘She’s right,’ he said quietly.