‘The Maserati,’ Art admitted. ‘Nasty dent but her car, sadly, was more or less a write-off. No worries. It’ll be sorted.’

‘So she banged into my Maserati,’ Matias hurried the story along, planning on returning to this little episode later down the line, ‘told you who she was and then...what?’

‘You sound suspicious, Matias, but that’s exactly what happened. I asked her if that was the Carney residence and she said yes, that her dad lived there and she had just seen him. She was in a bit of a state because of the accident. She mentioned that he was in a foul mood and that it might be a good idea to rearrange whatever plans I had with him.’

‘So there’s a daughter,’ Matias said thoughtfully. ‘Interesting.’

‘A nice girl, Matias, or so it would seem.’

‘Impossible.’ That single word was a flat denial. ‘Carney is a nasty piece of work. It would be downright impossible for him to have sired anything remotely nice.’ The harsh lines of his face softened. For all his friend’s days of being bullied, Art had an instinctive trust in the goodness of human nature that he, Matias, lacked.

Matias had no idea why that was because they were both mixed race, in Art’s case of Spanish descent on his mother’s side. They had both started at the bottom of the pecking order and had had to toughen up to defend themselves against casual racism and snobbery.

But then, Matias mused not for the first time, he and he alone had witnessed first-hand the way criminal behaviour could affect the direction of someone’s life. His father had met James Carney at university. Tomas Rivero had been an extraordinarily clever man with a gift for all things mathematical. He had also been so lacking in business acumen that when, at the age of twenty-four, he invented a computer program that facilitated the analysis of experimental drugs, he was a sitting duck for a man who had very quickly seen where the program could be taken and the money that could be made out of it.

James Carney had been a rich, young thing with a tribe of followers and an eye to the main chance. He had befriended Tomas, persuaded him into a position of absolute trust and, when the time was right, had accumulated all the right signatures in all the right places that ensured that the royalties and dividends from the software went to him.

In return, Tomas had been sidelined with a third-rate job in a managerial position in the already ailing family business Carney had inherited from his father. He had never recovered mentally.

This was a story that had unfolded over the years, although, in fairness to both his parents, nothing had ever been said with spite and certainly there had never been any talk of revenge on the part of either of them.

Matias’s father had died over a decade previously and Rose Rivero, from the very start, had not countenanced thoughts of those wheels turning full circle.

What was done, was done, as far as she was concerned. The past was something to be relinquished.

Not so for Matias, who had seen his father in those quieter moments, seen the sadness that had become a humiliating burden. You didn’t have to be a genius to work out that being shoved in some dingy back office while you saw money and glory heaped on undeserving shoulders had damaged his father irreparably.

As far as Matias was concerned, his father had never fully recovered from Carney’s theft. He had worked at the company in the pitiful job condescendingly given to him for a couple of years and then moved on to another company, but by then his health was failing and Rose Rivero had had to go out to work to help make ends meet.

If his mother had cautioned against revenge, then he had had enough of a taste for it for the both of them.

But he knew that over the years the fires had burned a little less brightly because he had become so intensely consumed in his own meteoric rise to the top. It had been propelled by his desire for revenge but along the way had gathered a momentum of its own, taken on its own vibrant life force...distracted him from the goal he had long ago set himself.

Until he had come upon those letters.

‘She must have produced her insurance certificate,’ Matias mused, eyes narrowing. ‘What’s the woman’s name?’

‘I’ll email you the details.’ Art sighed, knowing without having to be told the direction of his friend’s thoughts. ‘I haven’t had a chance to look at it but I took a picture of the document.’

‘Good,’ Matias said with some satisfaction. ‘Do that immediately, Art. And there will be no need for you to deal with this matter. I will handle it myself.’

‘Why?’ Art was the only person who would ever have dared ask such a forthright question. Especially when the question was framed in a tone of voice that carried a warning.

‘Let’s just say that I might want to get to know her better. Knowledge is power, Art, and I now regret that I didn’t dig a little deeper into Carney’s private life. But don’t look so worried! I’m not the big bad wolf. I don’t make a habit of eating innocent young girls. So if she’s as nice as you imply, then she should be as safe as houses.’