She compared Liam to Craig. While Craig was kissing his ex-wife, Liam was painting behind his wife’s back because he couldn’t share his passion, and she was setting him up for a fall. Jenny wondered whether to tell Liam. Or tell Orla that she knew. Neither option was appealing. Then she thought about kissing Craig again, so stupid. And yet.

She was in the downstairs hall in darkness now. She heard voices upstairs and headed up. Archie and Dorothy were in the kitchen, a nearly empty whisky bottle between them, paperwork scattered over the table and piled on the floor. Schrödinger was moping in a window chair.

‘What’s this?’ she said.

They both looked up. Dorothy took a second to focus.

‘Simon Lawrence.’

Jenny stepped towards the table. ‘The guy who walked out on his family.’

All these bad husbands and fathers, and Liam in his studio painting skulls and alien plants.209

Dorothy pulled a chair out for her to sit. ‘That’s the thing, I’m not sure he did walk out.’

Jenny sat. ‘But he disappeared.’

Dorothy nodded but didn’t speak.

‘So?’ Jenny said.

Dorothy swallowed. She was definitely drunk.

Archie spoke. ‘Your mum thinks your dad was involved.’

Jenny felt her brow crease. ‘But the DNA came back negative.’

‘Not involved with Rebecca,’ Archie said. ‘Involved in Simon’s disappearance.’

He swept an arm at the papers across the table.

Jenny took a minute to put it together then turned to Dorothy. ‘No way.’

Dorothy shrugged and swayed a little. She had an edge Jenny hadn’t seen before, like she was on the brink of falling apart.

‘Maybe,’ Dorothy said.

Archie went back to examining the papers in front of him, keeping his head down to avoid getting into this.

‘You know what you’re implying,’ Jenny said.

Dorothy shook her head.

‘You just don’t want to say it,’ Jenny said.

‘Please.’

‘You think Dad was a murderer.’

Archie froze, and Dorothy stared at Jenny then lowered her head into her hands. She began to weep into her palms, tears dripping onto an accounting ledger in front of her.

‘I don’t know why you’re crying,’ Jenny said. ‘It’s your idea, I just said it out loud.’

Dorothy took heaving breaths, shoulders shaking.

Jenny shook her head. ‘If anything, I should be crying. You’re calling my dad a killer.’

Dorothy lifted her face and pulled a tissue from her sleeve, dabbed at her eyes and nose. ‘This is hard for all of us.’

‘You think?’210

Out the corner of her eye, Jenny saw Archie slide a single sheet of paper off a pile and place it carefully on the floor, his head down the whole time.

Dorothy shoved the tissue back into her sleeve. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’ Jenny said. ‘Thinking the worst of my dad?’

Dorothy raised her chin in defiance. ‘I can’t help how I feel. None of us can.’