Do not bring anybody with you.”

I have asked him since whether he knew, that afternoon, what was on that account.

He has never answered it.

He will not answer it.

I have asked three times, twice as a favour and once, badly, when I was upset.

What he said the third time was: “If I had told you on the twenty-ninth of October what I was not permitted to tell you, then for the rest of your life you would be a woman whose inheritance depended on one man breaking a rule.

“I was not going to hand you that.