‘Of course I mean his persona, his mask – people behave one way in public, quite another when they are not performing.’ Offended, I didn’t reply. ‘Tell me, does that file say he was an Englishman who’d never been to England?’

I pricked up my ears. ‘No it does not. Would you mind if I make notes?’ She shook her head smiling. I blushed, I was back at school, I was the eager boy in the front of class.

‘But that is one of the most interesting points about him…’ Aunty continued. ‘Imagine! He was born and brought up here in India – weaned and schooled here – and he went several times planning to go home – fully intending to make the pilgrimage - and never got further than Suez. His parents used to make him recite the names of local fauna around their family house in Sussex, and all the county cricket teams. But he never got further than Suez.’ She paused. ‘He was rather like an exaggerated version of himself, like a cliché or a children’s toy – playing a character slightly, dress up doll, that sort of thing - acting how he thought an Englishman should act. He had all the right moves, he wore all the right affections but it didn’t quite click. I suppose he was scared that was he to go home on English soil he would be confronted by something he couldn’t quite handle.’

‘And all this made him sad?’

‘Ah no – if it was that easy no one would have got themselves in a mess.’ She paused. ‘Agatha made him sad. He was very in love with Agatha. She was different to the English women he met in India. It was like he had been searching among a great handful of fake paste gems, then come across this tiny hard diamond. He actually said that to me once, your joker in the pack. He doted on his little hard diamond. He gave her most things that she wanted. But I don’t think he ever quite felt that love returned, or even engaged. She used to treat him rather like a headmaster. You know, she was always trying to avoid being given detention.’

I pondered this, then decided to tell her what I’d read in the files, for I’d half-wondered if it had anything to do with Auntie’s own internment: ‘They told me you were Agatha’s only confidant.’

‘Ah…’ She paused. ‘Agatha... Ag-ata!’

‘Please don’t feel you should protect her.’

‘But now that is an interesting thought in itself,’ she said ignoring my last comment. ‘Agatha actually allowing someone to know what she was really thinking, what was going on in her head. Pretty head as