Previous – that meant that they’d been caught for something else before, Grace knew from the television cop shows she’d watched with her father when she was growing up. Honestly, this was the most exciting thing to happen to her for ages, even though she knew that it absolutely shouldn’t be.

‘No one was hurt, but they were sentenced to fifteen years each. Ray got out after ten.’

Ten years in prison. What would that feel like? Grace tried to imagine losing ten years of her life. It depended which ten you picked, of course, not that Ray had that luxury. Grace couldn’t choose ten from her own life. Whichever way she rolled it, ten years was still far too long to sacrifice. Had Ray thought it was worth the risk? Well, he must have done. If you had no money, she supposed, you might take bigger risks to acquire some.

‘But what’s this about a house?’ Grace asked, steering them back to the original mystery, although now she thought she could probably guess.

Charles rubbed his chin and she could hear the scratch of his fingers against the stubble.

‘Ray just couldn’t get a start,’ Charles said. ‘When he came out, I mean. No one would give him a chance. And here’s me with all this.’ He waved his arm in a great sweeping gesture. ‘So I said I’d buy him a house. Just to give him some stability. I told him that I’d help, but only if that was the last I heard of it. I don’t want him in our life, Grace. He doesn’t know where I live or anything about you. He just knew that I played violin, so he tracked me down that way. I really don’t think he’ll be in touch again.’

Part of Grace was disappointed. Her curiosity had been tickled. Now she wanted to meet this shadowy character, Ray, to draw her own conclusions about him. Was he the kind of criminal that you could spot just by looking at him? There were people like that, she knew, from watching the news. All you had to do was look into their eyes on those uncompromising mugshots and you could just tell they were ne’er-do-wells. Or was Charles’s half-brother the sort of hapless criminal who made a mistake, but then could slip back into the folds of society without causing any more wrinkles? Grace toyed with the idea of telling Charles that Ray would be welcome in their family, but then she thought of the Turner hanging in the drawing room and the Matisse on the landing and thought better of it. Charles knew what was best here. She should just accept his judgement on the matter.

‘And does he have any family of his own?’ she asked.