Lucinda returned to school on Monday. She and Alice-Miranda finished their Science project in time for the fair and came in a credible second place behind Alethea and Gretchen, who had produced an outstanding experiment on how to identify counterfeit bank notes. Gretchen convinced Alethea to leave Alice-Miranda alone, on the threat that she would unfriend her immediately if she didn’t. Alice-Miranda hadn’t given up altogether on her and Alethea being friends one day – but she was smart enough to know that it might take a little while longer to get there.

Lucinda’s mother invited Ava, Quincy and Alice-Miranda to the salon on Saturday afternoon, but Lucinda suggested they go for frozen hot chocolate instead. Out on bail, Morrie agreed and accompanied the girls himself. Mrs Oliver insisted that she go along to make sure that he behaved himself. Morrie couldn’t remember having so much fun in ages.

Gerda Finkelstein told her husband about her visit to Louisa. He suggested she go as often as she wanted. Gerda said she wasn’t asking his permission.

Morrie Finkelstein turned over a new leaf. In fact, he raked a whole lot of leaves when he nominated park duty for his community service. A judge sentenced him to one thousand hours which, strangely, he found quite enjoyable. Morrie wrote a formal apology to Cecelia and offered to terminate the contracts with the suppliers he’d stolen from her. Cecelia said the suppliers could make up their own minds about that. After all, there was more than enough room in New York City for both of them.

Callum Preston adored his job as Ed Clifton’s assistant. In his spare time he painted and drew as much as he could. Gilbert Gruber saw the picture of Alice-Miranda and the tamandua and invited the young man to hold his first exhibition, Zoo Creatures, at Highton’s on Fifth. It was a sell-out.

When Alice-Miranda had seen the little book with the drawings in her father’s study alongside those mysterious notes, she’d written to Mr Clifton via the Met and suggested that he might like to meet her family. She didn’t know for sure if he’d come but she’d had to take the chance.

The man now known as Edward Clifton spent several days with his younger brother, filling in the gaps for forty lost years. Ed explained how he had fought bitterly with their father when he told him he wanted to study art. Henry Kennington-Jones said that if he walked that path he would walk it alone. On a wet winter’s night Henry banished his son from their home. But his mother Arabella couldn’t bear to see her beloved boy disowned. She took a painting from the wall in one of the guest bedrooms, one she especially loved. It was a mother and her son by Renoir. She told him to sell it and use the money to take care of himself. But just the next night, there was the terrible car accident. Edward couldn’t bear to part with the only thing that linked him to his mother. He worked three jobs to put himself through art school and gave the painting anonymously to the Metropolitan Museum of Art so he could look at it whenever he wanted to. And everyone else could too. His father hated art, so Edward wasn’t concerned that he would ever find out where the painting was. Xavier used his middle name, Edward, with his mother’s maiden name and over the years made a life for himself in New York, too angry to look back. His mother had always said ‘no regrets’ but Edward wasn’t so sure about that. He had no idea that his father had told everyone he’d died alongside his mother. As far as he was concerned, he thought his younger brother mustn’t have wanted anything to do with him.

Then when he met Alice-Miranda he knew it was fate. And if his own brother was anything like this tiny child, with the cascading chocolate curls and brown eyes as big as saucers, he knew he had nothing to lose, just a family to gain.