"I don't have an uncle called Benjamin."
Hatherley left the photograph on the table.
"My father had one brother," Eleanor said. "Robert. He died before I was born."
"I know about Robert."
"Then who are you talking about?"
Hatherley glanced at Relf.
"Tell her," Relf said.
He picked up his whisky, but did not drink.
"Benjamin Harcourt was your grandfather's eldest son. Fourteen years older than your father."
Eleanor shook her head.
"My father would have mentioned him."
"He may never have known him."
"He knew his own family."
Hatherley said nothing.
She waited for him to correct himself — to ask another question about her father, or admit that he had confused two families. Instead, he turned the photograph slightly so they could all see it.
"Ben left England young. He went into merchant shipping, then settled in Hong Kong. By the seventies he was working in freight forwarding."
"Smuggling?" Relf asked.
"Among other things."
"What did he move?"
"Cargo. Almost anything there was money in."
"Drugs?"
"Sometimes."
Eleanor looked at the young man beside Bull. Nothing in his face helped her. She could not find a resemblance, though she knew she was looking for one.
"Was that why Adrian knew him?" she asked.
"Ben's value wasn't chiefly in moving cargo."
"What was it?"
"People."
Relf leaned forward.
"Explain."
"He could arrange for someone to leave one country and appear in another without any record connecting the two."
"With false papers?"
"Whatever the journey required."
Eleanor thought of the passenger at Wren's Cut examining the contents of the holdall. The coat waiting for him. The wallet. Four passports bearing the same face.
"Someone wanted by the police?" Relf asked.
"Sometimes."
"And afterwards?"
"Another name. Somewhere to go. People who knew what to do."
Eleanor drew the photograph towards her.
"How long had he been doing that?"
Hatherley watched her hand on the edge of the picture.
"A very long time."
She read the inscription on the back once more.
Adrian & Ben — HK, 1982
Then she turned it over.
"You're certain about his surname?"
"Yes."
She put the photograph down between them.
"Then tell me why I've never heard it."