And Hector? Well, he had responded to his father’s death by shouting. He shouted at her and Clio. He shouted at the staff. She had even heard that he’d shouted at the poor vicar’s wife, who generally wouldn’t say boo to a goose. And now here he was shouting again. Feeling suitably prepared, Grace went to find out what he wanted.

She found her son in his father’s office. He was sitting on the floor surrounded by coloured files and sheets of typewritten paper. If they had ever been in any kind of order, that was now most definitely a thing of the past.

‘Ah, Mother,’ he said as she went in. ‘Do you know anything about this stuff of Dad’s? I thought all the important paperwork was either in the estate office or at the solicitor’s, but I’ve just found this file.’ He kicked a black box file with his foot. ‘And it’s full of papers that I can’t work out. It seems we own a house on the coast. In Whitley Bay, of all the godforsaken places. Lord only knows what that’s about.’

Grace’s heart fluttered and she put a hand to her throat instinctively. ‘Yes. Your father bought that house years ago. For . . .’ She hesitated. She shouldn’t bring up Ray. Hector would want to know why no one had ever thought to mention an uncle, and she wasn’t nearly as good as Charles had been at lying.

‘For an investment,’ she continued, pleased that she had managed to think of something on the spot that sounded more or less plausible. ‘I’m sure there’s no need to do anything about it just yet. I’ll mention it to the solicitor next time I’m there.’

She bent down and started to gather up the paperwork.

‘An investment property in a third-rate seaside town? I can’t see the point of that. It needs selling,’ said Hector dismissively.

‘Actually, Whitley Bay is very nice,’ said Grace, oddly feeling the need to defend the house.

Hector wasn’t listening. He flicked Grace away as if she were an over-attentive waitress, shuffled the papers from one pile to another and continued to riffle through the rest of the file’s contents.

‘I’m going to go round to the land agents’ on Monday and see what they think,’ he said. ‘It’s important that I get up to speed on everything so that I can step up, now that Dad’s . . .’ Hector swallowed hard and looked resolutely down at the paper-strewn floor.

Grace’s heart ached for her son, but he seemed to have forgotten that although she had put him in charge of running the estate a year or so before, the Hall and the estate all belonged to her, as did the house in Whitley Bay and any other assets that Charles had held in his own name.