Instead, she became a medium, Madame Boninska, and adopted what she remembered from the Marchesa as her only way of making a living. She travelled the Continent performing tricks of the Far Beyond, eking out a penurious living duping the foolish, mixing this in with a little blackmail and emotional torture. She was good at that. It was, if you like, her natural calling.

But there had been a child; for once she had told your father the truth, even though she did so out of cruelty and a desire to hurt. It was taken from her at birth, as is usual. She was never allowed to touch it or see it. Marangoni took care of everything. He knew her by then. He knew what she was capable of, and what being the child of such a creature might mean. It was tainted by bad blood, degenerate. The wrong circumstances could bring that out in the next generation and begin the cycle again. Only an entirely safe environment might counteract the tendency. Even then, I imagine, he was not hopeful.

So the child was hidden from its mother in the forests of bureaucracy with no name and no identity, no birth certificate, nothing. And he destroyed all records of where it had gone. Adopted? By a family, one in a town nearby? The records were silent, I was told. His successors told me the truth; I could sense it from their letter; they did not have to deny me knowledge, and did not have to lie. They simply did not know.

But Louise looked. This was clear from the record; she had left the asylum and the notes had recorded her intentions. Not you; she never once asked about you in the twenty-three years she spent in that place. In her eyes, you were your father's child, not hers. But the other one, the one she gave birth to in the asylum, that one she wanted to find; that one was hers, she knew it; felt it in her blood.

As I had never heard from her again, I assumed she had not succeeded, or that the child was dead. But I found I wanted to know about this infant, my child, and she was the one person who might be able to tell me something. I became almost obsessive in a way that business never affected me. You know me there well enough; the greatest problems, the biggest projects, are things I take in my stride. Even disaster and failure make me lose no sleep.

This did; I became preoccupied, it played on my mind. Elizabeth saw it and worried, but I was too ashamed to tell her what concerned me. I know all about her life and what it was like, but she has never done a cruel thing. I did not want to acknowledge how much better a person she was than I.

So, all in secret, when I should have been concentrating on other things, I looked for Louise Cort, as my one chance of finding the truth. Eventually I got a lead from Germany, and instructed Xanthos to go and make sure it was really her; I would not go myself. The idea of seeing her once more frightened me. What did he say to her? What did she reply? I do not know; I have not seen him since; he always finds a reason to be out of the country, plotting away and thinking I am unaware of his ambitions.

But, whatever passed between them, it brought her to London and produced several whingeing letters asking for money. Threatening, hinting, but empty. She knew I wanted something, that was all. She did not know what. A few days ago, I went to see her, and again this afternoon.

She never knew the significance of what she told me. Any feeling of sympathy or remorse for her evaporated on meeting her again. She has spread nothing but cruelty in this world and now she is my end as well. She will have her final triumph. Mine is that she will never know what it was.

Oh, she was foul; rank, wheedling, disgusting. I could hardly bear to talk to her; could not sit down in the same room. 'Why don't we talk over old times? You loved me once.'

No; I didn't. I never did. Any more than she ever loved me. She never knew the meaning of the word and, until I met Elizabeth, neither did I. We deserved each other, I have no doubt, but neither your father nor Macintyre deserved either of us. They were better men than that.

She was too addled in her brain to know what I was asking; could not put the pieces together. All she wanted was money; she could have had it all, if she had given me a different answer. She got the money, much good would it do her. Oh, her lovely little child, so cruelly snatched from her mother's arms. But a mother's love is insatiable, she tracked it down, almost, had found the woman who had taken it away, persuaded her to say. Such a long way they had sent it, so she would never suspect. She outwitted them, she was clever. But fate was cruel, she was defeated again. It had gone by the time she got there, walked out. It was working nearby, she went to see. The child had fled. Oh, she looked, certainly she looked, a child in trouble needs a mother's love. But not a sign nor a trace was there ever again.

And there were only a few more questions left to ask. I didn't expect the answers to be anything but banal, uninteresting, a tidying up. I was perfectly calm, almost relaxed. Just a bit of unfinished business before I could leave. I almost didn't bother to ask at all.

Was it a boy or a girl?

A girl.

Where was this?

Lausanne.

What was the name of the family?

Stauffer.

And her name?

Elizabeth.

I was wrong. I thought that I had left Venice behind me when I travelled back to England with Macintyre's machinery, but it has been with me all my life. I have now made my preparations; swiftly and inadequately no doubt, but they will serve. I must carry out my plans before I weaken, and I have a change of heart. I am a coward physically, I know myself well. It will not be easy to take the necessary steps, all too easy to find some reason for changing my mind. But I must not weaken. This is the only entirely satisfactory end. Many people will be inconvenienced because of what I am about to do, but I do not care. Elizabeth would suffer if I acted differently, and that I could not bear.

I cannot remain with her. I cannot ever see her again, for fear that I would confess the terrible truth that I learned this afternoon. I cannot even say goodbye, nothing must suggest anything other than an accident. She would work to find out the truth. She is a very intelligent, determined woman, as you know. Despite my efforts to protect her, she might succeed.

You must know this, Cort. You owe me nothing; had I acted differently, your father might, perhaps, have held on to his frail health long enough to be a proper parent. I do not apologise for using you in the matter of Barings in Paris and I imagine you do not expect such an apology. These things happen in politics and in business. My only mistake there was assuming you were sufficiently worldly wise to expect it. Equally, I do not think that watching you over the years pays off my debt to you in any way. Had things been otherwise, you would not have needed me.

But you do owe a debt to Elizabeth. You took it on in Paris when you were willing to sacrifice her for the sake of some gold. You were her friend, she trusted you, and you betrayed her to vent your anger at me. I did not understand it at the time, but I fear the cruelty of your mother lives on in you. You enjoyed what you did that night too much; I saw it in your eyes, and I know that you have tried to justify yourself since by thinking that I, too, was prepared to do the same, if necessary. That I had Drennan acquire her diaries that I might use them myself. You were wrong. Even then I would have allowed the entire Empire to crumble to protect her. And you killed the man who saved you from the flames.

The bill you incurred then is outstanding, and I am calling it in. It is your only chance of throwing off for ever that terrible inheritance which lies within you. You must hide or destroy this memoir of mine, ensure Louise Cort never grasps the truth, and watch over your half-sister for the rest of your life, enduring her hatred of you, never saying a word. Your father is part of you as well; you will comply with my wishes.