Before their relationship irredeemably soured, the Duchess of Sussex was apt to speak of her father with deep affection. As we were often reminded, she was the apple of his eye.
Underlining their unshakeable bond, Meghan once observed in her and Prince Harry's Netflix documentary that she had been 'a Daddy's Girl my whole life'.
It is not a description she's likely to use again any time soon. Her 82-year-old father, Thomas Markle, today stands accused of possessing a huge stash of 'sickening' child sex images at his home in the Philippines, having been shopped to police by his 60-year-old son, Thomas Jr. For his part, Thomas Sr says it is all 'a bunch of lies'.
What is notably curious about Meghan's Netflix reflection is that it was made in 2022 – four years after she now says the Metropolitan Police received a letter making 'troubling and disturbing allegations against my father'. It was because of these claims, the duchess says, that she prevented him from meeting her children. She did so 'to protect them'.
Yet in light of her concerns, referring to herself as 'a Daddy's Girl' strikes a rather odd note. If he was such a threat, why talk of him at all? And why use such a wholesome idiom, even retrospectively? Then again, much remains opaque in this story.
It is an unsavoury saga of criss-crossing feuds, claims, counter-claims and hidden sub-plots involving the motley Markle clan, for whom – at least for some of them – no barb is too low or unworthy of public dissemination. Thomas Jr's allegations about his father have already been dismissed by none other than his half-sister Samantha, who accused him of inventing them to make money.
'There is no merit in these disgusting allegations whatsoever and my brother is disgusting for making them up,' she told the Daily Mail. 'He wants to destroy our dad. Shame on him.'
Some may have forgotten that in the year before Meghan's wedding, Thomas Jr, then living in a small town in Oregon, pulled a gun on his fiancée, Darlene, during one of their drunken quarrels – or that one of his sons, Tyler, a marijuana farmer (it's legal to grow the drug in Oregon) planned to cash in on his association with Meghan by launching a super-strong strain of cannabis called Markle's Sparkle.
A young Meghan with her father Thomas in happier days when he took her to tap-dancing and ballet classes and their 'tradition' afterwards was to have a club sandwich and fruit smoothie
Whatever the truth about the child sex images, though, what can be said with certainty is that father and daughter, as both have said, were once undeniably close. As a child, Meghan kissed the screen when his name came up on the credits of the TV show on which he was lighting director.
And whenever she got the chance, she visited him on set. Occasionally they went fishing. At weekends he took her to tap-dancing and ballet classes and their 'tradition' afterwards was to have a club sandwich and fruit smoothie. Happy, halcyon days indeed.
Mr Markle always actively encouraged his daughter to follow her dreams so that 'I could grow up and have so much'. Who could doubt that he had been a wonderful father to the daughter he affectionately called 'Bean'? (Another pet-name he used was 'Buckaroo', a Californian-Spanish word for cowboy.)
Though their bond loosened as she grew older, her love endured until her 2018 wedding when, as the world knows, an act of foolishness by Mr Markle led to an estrangement that never healed. He secretly collaborated with a paparazzi photographer to stage a series of pictures when, at the time, Prince Harry was beseeching the media to leave his future father-in-law alone.
Meghan severed all ties and they never spoke again. Her loose-lipped father complained endlessly. Many felt Meghan was excessively harsh and urged her to reconcile before it was too late. Yet even the most flint-hearted of her critics must have felt a twinge of sympathy for the duchess this week when the disturbing allegations surfaced in the Philippines.
How painful for Meghan to be forced to reappraise every aspect of her childhood. All those certainties upended.
Ensuring nobody was left in any doubt about the significance of the claims, up popped someone from the Sussex camp to ram the message home in almost-gleeful fashion. Surely this wasn't the time to exploit a crisis?
'Now maybe people will finally understand why she has had nothing to do with her father since 2018,' said the insider.
Hours later, the possibility was raised that Mr Markle had been framed. Perhaps the insider had been a little hasty. But before that claim could be weighed and digested, it transpired his alleged predilection for child pornography wasn't news to Meghan after all.
Crucially, perhaps, her statement yesterday did not say when someone shared the contents of the letter about her father or when she read it. The implication, though, was that it was in 2018 – the year of the wedding.
If she was aware her father was facing serious claims, she didn't show it. Only two years earlier she had paid him a gushing Father's Day tribute.
In it, she recalled 'so many moments with my dad... his commitment he made to lighting my high school musicals so that they felt as grand as a Broadway Show.
'The blood, sweat and tears this man (who came from so little in a small town in Pennsylvania, where Christmas stockings were filled with oranges, and dinners were potatoes and Spam) invested in my future so that I could grow up and have so much.
'He helped me turn my bathroom into a darkroom when I was 12 because I wanted to be a photographer. He put gas in my car when I went from audition to audition trying to make it as an actress. He is the person who believed in this grand dream of mine well before I could even see it as a possibility.
'He taught me to write thank you notes, to always arrive early, to drink Arnold Palmers [a non- alcoholic cocktail of lemonade and iced tea, popular in the US], to find my light when I'm on camera... and beyond. And that, right there, is my point: my dad taught me to find my light.' And it was always her intention that he would be the one to walk her down the aisle.
In the months before the wedding, all had seemed well between them – even if Meghan wasn't keen on him making a speech. When Mr Markle told Harry on the phone that he would 'like to make a little speech' at the wedding, the prince responded: 'You will have to talk to Meghan.'
According to Mr Markle, when he spoke to his daughter, she replied there was 'no room' in the ceremony for a speech by her father. Mr Markle said: 'I was going to recount the funny story about how she broke the news to me about dating Harry. 'Daddy, I've met a man… Daddy, he's English… Daddy, he's a prince'.'
After the staged photos scandal, Mr Markle felt too embarrassed to show his face in Windsor. And the matter was put beyond doubt when he suffered two heart attacks with just days to go.
Text messages from Meghan made plain her concern, even if she was irritated he was blabbing to the media. One read: 'I've been reaching out to you all weekend but you're not taking any of our calls or replying to any texts. Do you need help? What hospital are you at?'
In another, sent on May 17, 2018 – two days before the wedding – she said: 'Please can I ask that you stop talking to any press. You haven't returned any of our 20+ calls since we all spoke on Saturday morning; which only adds to the hurt you've been causing. We aren't angry but we do really need to speak to u. Love M and H.'
Then, a group of five women – the duchess's inner circle –resolved to 'speak the truth' about their friend to an American celebrity magazine.
It has been widely reported that the resulting article which appeared in People in February 2019 was sanctioned by the duchess herself, something that was never denied.
Certainly, it seemed inconceivable that this well-meaning quintet would run to a magazine favoured by Meghan to 'set the record straight' and criticise her father without her blessing.
What is noteworthy about the article now is that it conveyed Meghan's desire to repair their relationship.
Why, you might ask, would she wish to do so if she was worried about the apparent threat he posed to her son, who was born just a few months later in May 2019?
Meghan visited her father on set whenever she got the chance and even kissed the screen when his name came up on the credits of the TV show on which he was lighting director
One friend is quoted by People as saying: 'He writes her a really long letter... and he closes it by requesting a photo op with her. And she feels like, 'That's the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm telling you I don't want to communicate through the media, and you're asking me to communicate through the media. Did you hear anything I said?' It's almost like they're ships passing.
'He knows how to get in touch with her. Her telephone number hasn't changed. He's never called; he's never texted.'
So by 2019 then, Meghan, it seems, was more than alive to the possibility of reconciliation.
Where then does this leave yesterday's statement in which she described the child sex allegations as 'more sickening' than was possible to imagine?
In it, Meghan added: 'I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed. In 2018, a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection. That letter was subsequently shared with me.'
She said that when she received the letter outlining allegations against her father, she was 'given assurance that these were being investigated'.
Here's where the saga takes another curious twist.
Her statement appeared to catch the Met unawares. The force could not readily confirm Meghan's account of the letter being passed to her, although one should note that she did not specify that the police did so. Perhaps it was the original letter-writer, or someone else.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: 'We are aware of media reports that officers from the Met's Royalty and Specialist Protection Command were involved in the passing on of a letter in 2018. We are undertaking enquiries internally in an effort to confirm this.'
Meanwhile in Manila, the Undersecretary for the Philippines Department of Justice, Nicholas Ty, told the BBC that 'the matter is currently being investigated' by an anti-human trafficking and child sexual-exploitation task force.
Police have already seized Mr Markle's computer to conduct a comprehensive digital forensic examination. Investigators are analysing the data to determine the full scope and extent of his alleged criminal activities, with a minister saying it would take one week to get the forensic results.
Before then, we can doubtless expect more twists and turns in between.
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