Inge, twenty-six years my great-uncle’s junior, sat at her dressing-table in a blue silk peignoir embroidered with tiny bright humming birds, the plaiting device sticking incongruously from her long golden hair. ‘Ah. Little Thomas,’ she said, ‘how sweet you are…’ I stood behind her disentangling the golden strands from the silver tines of the device as gently as I could. ‘None of his machines work these days,’ she whispered, as Uncle Dominic's footsteps approached the door.