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‘No, that didn’t work out for me, did it? But you will try, won’t you? Promise me that, Leona. And when you do find it, I want you to build a hospice in Joshua’s name, here in New York. The Joshua Litton Hospice, so that children can have the care they need when their illnesses are terminal.’

‘You don’t want it in your name?’ Leona asked. The Alma Aldershoff she knew would most certainly want to bask in all the credit.

‘No, I want it to be in his name. In Joshua’s.

That’s very important, because it will be he who has inspired it, and I’ll be long gone.

I want this to happen more than anything, not for me, but for children like Joshua.

’ She drew her lips into a thin line. ‘I want to do something good for someone else for once. Better late than never!’

‘I’ll do my best.’ Leona reassured her softly.

‘If we hadn’t squandered our fortune, I could have done it myself.

But we have nothing to give now but our good intentions, and they’re not enough to build a top-of-the-range hospice!

I wish … oh!’ She sighed again, this time with frustration.

‘We were once one of the wealthiest families in America. What a waste. What a goddamn waste.’

Leona had never heard her mother swear. ‘Money’s not all it’s cracked up to be,’ she said diplomatically.

‘It’s everything it’s cracked up to be if it’s used wisely.

We didn’t use ours wisely at all.’ Alma let go of Leona’s hand.

‘So, you find the Potemkin Diamond, if it’s the last thing you do, and you build that hospice.

If you don’t, I’ll haunt you like Lester Ravenglass.

’ She grinned playfully. ‘And I’m sorry I was a selfish mother.

I admit it now. I was a selfish mother.’ She gave a sniff and set off up the gravel path.

‘But if you find that diamond, I can atone for all the bad I’ve ever done. ’

Leona wanted to tell her that the word ‘sorry’ – another word she had never heard her mother utter until now – was enough.

After the meeting with Tanya and Lara, Mr Stirling returned to his office feeling both relief and optimism.

Tanya was a shrewd woman with a talent for looking at situations from unusual angles.

Her ideas had been carefully thought out, weighed up and presented with eloquence and intelligence, and he was impressed.

Manson & Roseby would indeed be the perfect company to promote the Aldershoff in the UK.

He hoped that Tanya would agree. Wouldn’t it be ironic, he thought to himself as he sat in front of his laptop, if one of the reasons why she chose to represent them was Lester Ravenglass’s ghost haunting the place!

He scrolled down his emails, but his mind drifted to Pixie and Ulysses, and he wondered how long they would take to complete the job.

He had no idea what was involved or how much time was customary.

Glancing at the digital clock in the right-hand corner of his screen, he could see that they had been in the Walter-Wyatt drawing room for almost two hours.

He hoped that Pixie was managing to move the spirit on, and not taking advantage of his ignorance and watching a soap opera instead!

Hamish McCloud had seemed genuine enough, for he had come highly recommended and hadn’t asked for a fee when he couldn’t get rid of the poltergeist, and he presumed the College of Psychic Studies was a reputable place, but still, how on earth would he know if the ghost had gone?

He wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that it had been there in the first place.

It would be Pixie’s word, and he’d have to believe it and pay her, irrespective of evidence.

After all, how could it be proven? He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Was he a gullible fool?

He thought of Ulysses then and hope flared in his chest. Whether or not the pair were charlatans, he was exceedingly happy to have met him . It had been a long time since he had felt drawn to anyone in that way and the feeling was unnerving and exciting at the same time.

He tried to answer a couple of emails, but he was too distracted to concentrate.

Instead, he went onto the internet and began to search for Ulysses Lozano to see what he could find.

When he found one of his social media pages, he expanded the first photograph and leant back on his chair.

Ulysses was possibly the most beautiful man he had ever seen.

He rested his hand on his chin, gazed into those beautiful green eyes and let out a deep sigh. There was no harm in dreaming.

He was seized by a crazy idea. It really wasn’t the sort of thing he did, and he’d be mortified if someone caught him doing it.

But it was too compelling an idea to resist. He got up from his chair and left his office.

He wandered purposefully through the hall, nodding and smiling at the members of staff who stood about on duty.

He stopped to make small talk with the doormen, and then wandered nonchalantly into the street.

The sun bathed the pavements in a warm golden light.

A couple with a black Labrador strode by on their way to the park.

A trio of girls in Lycra jogged lightly over the tarmac.

The usual noise of road works, police sirens and traffic rose into the air with the evaporating rain from the night before.

Mr Stirling put his hands in his pockets and sidled up to the window of the Walter-Wyatt drawing room, behind which Ulysses and Pixie were supposedly hard at work.

The curtains were drawn behind the glass and there were railings separating the pavement where he stood from the wall of the building.

He couldn’t get close. But on keener inspection he could just make out, through a sliver of a gap where the curtains hadn’t quite joined, Pixie sitting on a chair with her back straight, her hands on her knees and her eyes closed.

He was relieved to see that she wasn’t whiling away the time watching Netflix.

He moved his head a little to find Ulysses, but regretfully the gap wasn’t wide enough.

As it was, he only managed to get a partial view of Pixie.

He sighed. He’d love to know what Ulysses was up to. What exactly was his role in this enterprise? Well, he wasn’t going to get any answers standing outside. He wandered back into the hotel. There was nothing for him to do but wait.