She smiled quietly. 'Of course. You are quite correct. I didn't mention it because I did not know of his involvement when John died. Besides, Mr Cort and I are not close.'

'That means you do not like each other?'

'If you like.'

'Why not?'

'That is none of your business. John necessarily had dealings with him, but I insisted that they be conducted away from me.'

I brooded over this. It didn't help me at all. 'Why? I mean, what dealings?'

'John made weapons, the government bought them. Naturally they had common interests. Don't ask me more; I do not know.'

'How did you meet your husband? What was he like?'

She smiled, recalling a fond memory. 'He was the kindest man you could meet, the best I ever knew,' she began. 'That was not his reputation, perhaps, and I sense that it is not the opinion you have formed of him, but you are wrong. The man of money and power, and the man who shared my life, had little in common.'

She paused and looked across the square, at all the normal, poor people strolling to and fro, or hurrying across. Some looked as though they were taking a break from the reading desks of the British Museum, others came from the shops and offices of Holborn. I even hoped – again, this was a sign to which I should have given more attention – that perhaps an old colleague from Fleet Street might appear, and see me. See me with her, in fact.

'I met him on a train,' she went on, as this pleasant and dangerous fantasy flickered through my mind. 'On the Orient Express.'

'Is it true he had his own carriage?'

She laughed, more easily now. 'No, of course not. I've told you – he was a simple man in his tastes. He had his own compartment, of course. There is no particular pleasure in sharing with total strangers unless you have to. Ostentation would have been detrimental to his business; often on these trips he liked to travel as quietly as possible so as not to be noticed.'

Maybe she had really loved him; she smiled as memories flitted past, the very idea of her husband brought her pleasure, and the thought of his death caused her grief. I had anticipated a marriage of convenience and companionship at most. A rich man seeks a beautiful young woman in the same way that such people might desire a racehorse, or an expensive painting. Is that not true? And the beautiful young woman desires security and luxury. But they expect no gratification, and little affection; these (so I understood) they must find elsewhere. Perhaps this had been different.

'The thing about John, you see, is that he was quite simple in his affections as well. He thought of himself as a sophisticated man of the world, and in business matters no doubt he was. But he was not a man for gallantry, had no idea how to seduce, or flatter or be anything other than he was. I found his uncomplicated nature beguiling.'

She looked at me, and smiled. 'I can see I am surprising you,' she said. 'You think I would want an elegant man of sophistication. Handsome, athletic, worldly.'

'I suppose.'

'You know nothing, I'm afraid, Mr Braddock. Nothing of me, nothing of women at all.' She said it gently, as a matter of fact, but I still blushed hotly.

'Someone said that both of you met their match in the other.'

She laughed. 'Who on earth said that?'

'Mr Xanthos. Do you know him?'

She nodded. 'Not well. But we have met often.'

'So is his opinion true?'

'I would hardly claim to be John's match. What else did he tell you?'

'Oh, that you were once one of the most influential women in France, or something like that.'

Here she let out a burst of laughter, and almost choked on her tea. Her eyes sparkled with merriment as she put down her cup carefully and looked at me. 'Good heavens,' she said after a while. 'What an extraordinary idea. How on earth did he come up with that?'

'He said you ran a salon, or something.'

'And that made me the most influential woman in France?'

'Apparently.'

'Well, no,' she said, still smiling broadly. I think it was the first time I had seen her laugh, genuinely and without restraint. It transformed her. 'No, I'm afraid not. A young girl from Hungary would stand no chance whatsoever of establishing herself like that in Paris. Not if she was respectable.'

'Pardon?'

'Some of the most famous salonnières are – or were, I do not know what it is like now – courtesans. Very expensive ones, but still . . . I hope you do not think . . .'

'No, no. Of course not. I mean . . .' I was red in the face, blushing deeply; I could even feel the roots of my hair burning with embarrassment. She looked at me, enjoying my confusion, but then kindly looked away across the square until I recovered myself. I could see her mouth still twitching, though.

'Is Mr Bartoli being helpful?' she asked, to change the subject.

'Mr Bartoli does not approve of me. He has indicated he will give me as little assistance as possible.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'Let me deal with that,' was her only reply and I realised Mr Bartoli was not going to be happy about it.

'I asked about your husband's concerns.'

'I do not know what they were. Just that he had been quite busy in the months before his death; I reproached him for it, and said that he really should be working less hard at his age, not more. But he said that this was the way of business, and if something important came up, you could not postpone it simply because you were getting old. Besides, he always maintained that working kept him young, and I think there was something in that. His mind was absolutely undiminished, and he was in no way frail.'

'And this something important . . . ?'

'Tell me, Mr Braddock, why do you ask so many questions about my husband's death?'

'I think you know perfectly well,' I said. 'Those papers disappeared when he died. I have two ways forward. Either to look for the child, or to look for the papers which will do the work for me. As I am naturally lazy, I think I should exhaust the latter option first of all. Besides, I don't even know when this boy – or girl – was born, or even in what country. Clearly if it was last year that requires one approach. If it was ten or twenty years ago, then it is different. Do you really have no idea at all . . . ?'

'No,' she said softly and a little sadly. 'None whatsoever. I really do not.'

CHAPTER 14

I realise that I have said little about my own life in my account. Partly this is because I wish to tell the story of Lord Ravenscliff, but mainly because I have little enough to say. Life as a reporter involved long hours; often enough I failed even to get back to my lodgings for dinner, and I frequently had to be up and out before Mrs Morrison had even begun to prepare breakfast. Lunch and dinner were eaten in pubs or taverns; my circle of acquaintanceship, outside my fellow lodgers and reporters, was limited. I briefly attended a reading group of worthy socialists, who would get together to discuss texts on the evils of capitalism, but I missed so many of the meetings, and so rarely had the time to read the books we were meant to be talking about, that I gradually let this drop.

I had no family nearby; my parents lived in the Midlands and I was the only member of the family to leave the town of my birth. I think I was the first of innumerable generations to stray more than ten miles from the centre of Coventry. We were not close; my wish to try my luck in London was perfectly incomprehensible to them. So it had been to me; I did not know why I wanted to leave so much. All I knew was that, if I stayed, I would end up like my father, working as a clerk in an office, or like my brothers, spending their lives in the factories and workshops of that city because they did not dare to do anything else. I do not relish adventure, but that prospect so terrified me that I was willing to swallow my fears. When I left school I worked for a year or so on the local newspaper and convinced myself that I was good at it; better still, I convinced others for long enough to get a reference. Armed with this and five pounds given to me by my father – who understood better than I then realised why I did not wish to be like him – I caught the train to London.