Basu, however, had been brought up in Delhi and could make sense of the journals. She read through 13 volumes of the Queen writing about Hindustani lessons in Balmoral, visiting Abdul when he was ill, and visits to take tea with his wife - who she had granted permission to come from India to join him - and see their cat’s new kittens. Her passion for India was obvious, from her desperate wish to eat a mango and her view of the Karims as her equals. It showed a completely different side of the Queen’s life that had been previously recorded.

After the Queen’s death, Abdul returned to Agra and it was here where Basu found a ruined mausoleum which would have once been studded with gems and rubies. His inscriptions still lay engraved on the tombstone.

“It was a big moment,” says Basu. “I felt, now I’ve found his grave, this man’s story had to be told. It became a passion. Within a few months, it had taken over my life. I mean, it was the Queen, a young Muslim man - what’s not to be curious about? The more and more I got into it, it became more and more gripping.”