The woman Harry will be really turning to during his father’s cancer fight

As Harry made his trans-Atlantic dash to be by King Charles’s side after the news broke of his cancer diagnosis, he cut a lonely figure. But there is one person in his life who has been with him through all his toughest times – and it’s not Meghan – says Polly Dunbar

The royal outcast arrived at Clarence House for a 30-minute meeting with his father (LNP/AP)

It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trip, but one which unleashed an inevitable flurry of speculation. On Tuesday, Prince Harry spent little more than half an hour with the King at Clarence House, following a 5,000-mile dash from his home in Montecito after hearing the news of his father’s cancer diagnosis.

A night in a London hotel, then he was back on a plane to the States, leaving the nation to wonder if those brief moments with the man he says he’ll “always love” were enough to begin repairing their fractured relationship.

After the turbulence of the last few years, with Harry quitting his royal role and making a slew of damaging allegations about his family, he certainly can’t turn to his brother, the Prince of Wales, for mutual comfort during this worrying time. The pair are not believed to have spoken at all since Harry’s memoir Spare, in which he described William as his “arch nemesis”, was published.