(Image: REX/GETTY )

The tyrant’s wife, Ri Sol-ju, resurfaced on Sunday after some eight months out of the public eye.

In her absence, rumours swirled that she had fallen out of favour or was carrying Kim’s baby.

Now it’s clear she wasn’t purged, but the question remains – did she have Kim’s first son?

Elite defector, Jang Jin-sung, said the truth would be among the regime’s closest-guarded secrets.

(Image: RODONG SINMUN )

Mr Jang was poet laureate of North Korea and met the last leader, Kim Jong-il, before escaping in 2004.

He also worked for South Korea’s intelligence service, but could only guess at the reason for Kim’s wife’s absence.

He told Daily Star Online: "If I claimed to know what’s going on, it would be a lie. That would be the most secret detail of the regime.

"If any individual claims to know what’s going on about the relationship between those two, that would be a lie."

Inside North Korea View gallery

The world only found out about the tyrant's first child, a daughter named Kim Ju-ae, through Dennis Rodman.

He's an ex-NBA star who happens to be pals with Kim — so don't expect any official announcement.

It was the same under the last leader according to defector, Kim Joo-il, who escaped from North Korea in 2007.

He told us: "When I was in the North I didn't know who Kim Jong-il's children were, I didn't know about Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un — none of them."

(Image: KCNA )

What we do know is this – Ri Sol-ju appeared with Kim at a newly-built commercial development in Pyongyang on March 28, 2016.

She didn’t reappear at his side until December 5 when they observed an air force demonstration at a military base.

The interval between these dates, 36 weeks, is a month short of the average pregnancy length – nine months.

But that's more than enough time to conceive, carry and deliver a healthy baby, and many children born at this stage survive.

(Image: RODONG SINMUN )

Ri Sol-ju could also be pregnant in either set of pictures; it may be too early to tell in the first set, and she's behind a table in the second.

And though she’s been rumoured to be expecting before, she vanished for no longer than four months on those occasions, according to the South’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

So an absence as long as the last one seems unprecedented, however it follows a long-term trend of decreasing public appearances for North Korea’s first lady.

She publicly accompanied Kim on 22 occasions in 2013, 15 in 2014, seven last year and just four this year, the South’s Yonhap News Agency reports.

(Image: MICHAEL HAVIS )

Nonetheless, it’s certain that if Kim wants his regime to survive him, he cannot hand over power to his daughter – he must have a male heir.

In his memoir, Dear Leader, Mr Jang says that “North Korea is a patriarchal society, which went straight from feudal Confucianism to Kim dynastic rule.”

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This is even reflected in the language, he said; the word people use to address their superiors – donji, meaning comrade – is the same word women must use to address men.

So while we can’t know for sure whether Kim now has a son to succeed him, it remains a distinct possibility – until Dennis Rodman tells us otherwise.