“But this uncle of yours,” she said. “What happened when he came to dinner?”

Matthew closed his eyes. He had a good visual memory; he could not remember music, for some reason, but he could remember seeing things. And now he saw himself again, at thirteen, going into the drawing room of his parents’ house. And he thought: My mother is still alive, and he felt a momentary twinge of regret. He had not loved her enough. He had been keen to cut the apron strings, to prove that he was his own person, and he had not returned her love. And then the apron strings had been cut for him, decisively and swiftly, by an aggressive tumour, and he had a lifetime to regret his unkindness.

He opened his eyes and reached for Elspeth’s hand, which he held in his, gently. She looked surprised. “Is something wrong?”

“Just remembering.” He let go of her hand. “I went into the room, and my Uncle Jack was there. He was sitting in a chair near the window, and when I came in he stood up. He was unsteady on his feet, and I thought that he was going to fall over, but he had hold of the back of the chair and he straightened himself.

“He was a tall man and he seemed to me to be very thin. But what I really remember was his hair – he had very neatly brushed hair, parted down the middle, and slicked down, like those hairstyles you see on the men in black-and-white films. Thirties hairstyles. He was smoking – he had a cigarette holder, a short black cigarette holder with a mother-of-pearl band across it. I remember that so well.

“Then he said to me, ‘Come here, young man, so that I can get a good look at you.’ And he took hold of my arm and pulled me over towards the window. I looked down at the floor; I was embarrassed. When you’re thirteen, and a boy, you’re embarrassed about everything. And I had that bit of cotton wool in my nose, you see.

“He looked at me for what seemed like a very long time. I heard his breathing. And I smelt the nicotine that must have covered him. All those nicotine particles.”

Elspeth shivered. “And then?”

“And then he let go of me and he turned to the window, without saying anything. And my father came in and whispered to me, ‘Your Uncle Jack gets very easily upset. He’s a nice man. But he gets easily upset. Just leave him now.’”

Matthew became silent.

“And that was all?” Elspeth asked.

“I had dinner in the kitchen. I didn’t see him again.”

“And that’s all you know about him?” asked Elspeth. It occurred to her that he might still be alive, might still be there in Singapore.

Matthew hesitated. “I’ve just looked in the Singapore phone book up in the bedroom,” he said. “While you were having your bath. I looked under his name.”

“And was he there?”

“Yes.”

They took a taxi from the front of Raffles, ushered into the car by the Sikh doorman with his large handlebar moustache.

“He reminds me of somebody,” said Elspeth. “Somebody with a moustache…”

“The Duke of Johannesburg,” said Matthew. “Remember – we had dinner at that restaurant near Holy Corner and then went to the Duke’s house. Remember?”

Elspeth looked at him blankly. “When?”

Matthew was astonished that she did not remember, and was about to express his astonishment. They had gone out to Single Malt House and one of the Duke’s sons had played the pipes and… Wrong woman. It had been Pat, not Elspeth.

His hand shot up to his mouth instinctively. “Oh…”

“I really don’t remember meeting a duke,” said Elspeth. “I’m sure I’ve never met a duke. I would remember, surely. After all, it’s not an everyday thing. There aren’t all that many of them and it’s the sort of thing one would remember – even if the duke himself was not particularly memorable. Some of them are quite dull, I understand.”

Matthew, keen to cover his mistake, was happy to move the conversation on to dukes in general. “I suppose that some are. But then, there are some who are quite interesting. The Duke of Buccleuch, the one who died not all that long ago, was an interesting man. And a very nice man too. You wouldn’t really have known that he was a duke, just to look at him. And he did a lot of good work.

“And then there was the Duke of Atholl. He was a very good bridge player. He had a private army, you know. A sort of ancient historical privilege. The only one in the country. But he never declared war on anybody. Not once.”

Elspeth stopped him. “But the Duke of Johannesburg…”

“You would have thought,” Matthew continued quickly, “that having a private army, one might want to use it. But he never did. It’s rather like having a nuclear weapon – you have it, but you can’t really use it.”

“But, Matthew, who’s the Duke of Johannesburg? I’ve never met him. I really haven’t. Are you sure that we went there for dinner?”

Matthew realised that he was trapped. But at that exact moment, just when he was about to confess that he had made a mistake and that it was somebody else who had been with him that evening – and, after all, there was no shame in that – it was well before he had even met Elspeth and he was entitled, surely, to a past life – just at that moment the taxi-driver, who had been following the discussion with some interest in his rear-view mirror, chose to make a pronouncement.

“Maybe breakfast,” he said. “Maybe breakfast, not dinner.”

Elspeth threw an amused glance at Matthew, who raised a finger to his lips.

“Maybe,” said Matthew to the driver. “Maybe.”

The driver nodded. “Anyway,” he said, “we’re nearly there. This is the Tanglin Club. See. This is a very good place.”

They drew up in front of an elaborate, wide-eaved building, surrounded by lush trees and shrubs, a small slice of jungle allowed to flourish in the middle of the gleaming city. Matthew paid the driver and they walked up to the front door.

“That dinner,” he said. “That dinner. I’m sorry; I was getting things mixed up. I went with somebody else. It was Pat. My last girlfriend.”

Elspeth looked away. “I knew,” she said. “But I wish you’d told me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Matthew. “I really am. I didn’t want to hurt you. It’s just that getting one’s wife mixed up with one’s girlfriend is not a very tactful thing to do… on one’s honeymoon.”

Elspeth laughed. “Oh don’t worry about that, Jamie. Let’s just forget about it.”

They were almost at the door. Jamie? But there was no time to go into that.

“Will you recognise him?” Elspeth asked. “If you haven’t seen him for… what is it? Fourteen years? Something like that?”

“I think so,” said Matthew. “He looks fairly like my old man. And if he’s still got that middle parting then he should be pretty recognisable.”

They went through the wide entrance doors and found themselves standing in a broad, panelled lobby. At the far end, a staircase swept up to the first floor; to one side two young women sat demurely at a high mahogany reception desk. The overall feel was one of a solid opulence over which a blanket of deadening silence has descended.

Matthew walked over to the reception desk and announced himself. The women smiled. “Your uncle is waiting for you in the Tavern,” said one of them. “My colleague will show you the way.”

The Tavern was a fair imitation of what an outsize English pub might have looked like before the invasion of electronic gambling machines, muzak, and cheap, chilled lager (and the culture that went with that particular brew). It was entirely deserted, apart from one table in the centre of the room, where they saw a tall, dapperly dressed man with a centre parting in his thick head of slicked-down hair. Next to him was a small Chinese woman in a dark dress, a smart red leather handbag resting on her lap.

The waiting couple rose to their feet as Matthew and Elspeth made their way over to meet them. Matthew’s uncle spoke quietly, his voice rather hoarse, like the voice of one who has just risen from his bed in the morning and not yet cleared his throat. Matthew saw a cigarette holder lying on the table, without a cigarette in it. It was the cigarette holder he remembered: black, with the mother-of-pearl band.