‘No,’ Molly said gently. ‘You didn’t adopt her. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because you weren’t sure you would get approval for the adoption. That’s all much more formal, isn’t it, than the way it worked out? More likely you ended up with this arrangement because the Grenvilles wanted to keep some control over her future. They couldn’t love Cassie but they still wanted some power to determine what would happen to her.’

There was a silence.

‘I am right?’ Molly said. ‘ Cassie is Joanna’s daughter?’

Molly half expected vehement denials but Marie seemed too exhausted to make the effort.

‘Joanna wouldn’t give the baby for adoption in the ordinary way,’ she said slowly. ‘She couldn’t bear the idea of strangers looking after her. This was the only way the Grenvilles could persuade her to give Cassie up at all.’

‘Who was the father?’ Molly asked.

‘Not Simon,’ Marie said. ‘ He never knew. Joanna insisted that he shouldn’t. It was one of her lecturers at college. He was married and when he found out she was pregnant he dumped her.’

‘Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?’ Molly said.

Marie sat beside her, quite close, with her elbows on the table. She did not look at Molly.

‘Joanna was an unhappy girl,’ she said. ‘Anyone with eyes and a brain could tell that. She was always nervy. She needed careful handling but no one seemed to see it. Except Ursula. If she’d been allowed to see more of Ursula that might have helped. When she went off to the art school I thought she might have the chance to sort herself out but she couldn’t cope with the freedom. She’d had nothing but criticism from Olivia Grenville and that’s no way to start off in adult life. She had no confidence, you know, no belief in herself.’

She paused again and Molly prompted her.

‘She got into drugs,’ Molly said. ‘Is that it?’

‘You know about that?’ Marie looked directly at her for the first time and Molly felt she had never known such kindness. Even now, after all these years, the keeper’s wife was moved by Joanna’s loneliness…

‘She came home one weekend and I hardly recognised her. You expect art students to be scruffy, don’t you? I never had the chance to go to college but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand. But she was thin and miserable. She came to see me and she hardly seemed to hear what I was saying to her. She told me she had the flu … If I hadn’t been so sheltered perhaps I would have seen what was happening to her but it never crossed my mind.’

She lapsed into silence. In the oven the stew gurgled and spat and the sweet smell of rabbit made Molly feel sick.