‘She stole money from me that day,’ Marie said at last, reluctantly. ‘I’ve never told anyone else about that. I went to answer the phone and when I came back twenty pounds was missing from my purse. She needed it, of course, to buy drugs.’

‘Did she tell her parents she was pregnant that weekend?’ Molly asked.

‘No,’ Marie said. ‘If she’d told them then she’d have been whipped away to an abortion clinic. She didn’t tell them until it was too late.’

‘What happened?’

‘They took her out of college and sent her to a private nursing home for the rest of the pregnancy. She was in no state then to argue. They told us that she was ill – glandular fever, I think they said – and when no one believed that they said it was stress, a breakdown. There were rumours of course that she was coming off heroin but even that was better than people knowing there would be a bastard on the Cadver Estate.’

‘When did the Grenvilles approach you to care for the child?’

‘Not until after Cassie was born. They didn’t have much contact with Joanna while she was in the nursing home. Mr Grenville was always busy and Mrs Grenville preferred to pretend that none of it was happening. The medical staff might have had some idea that Cassie would be handicapped but they never told Joanna. Perhaps they thought she was in no state to cope. The Grenvilles thought that as soon as the baby was born it would be taken for adoption and no one would be any the wiser.’

‘But it didn’t work out like that?’

‘No,’ Marie said. ‘It didn’t work out like that and I can’t pretend I’m not glad. We love Cassie and she’s the only chance I’d ever had to have a baby.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was clear to everyone, even to Joanna, that Cassie wasn’t normal. She was an ugly-looking mite with a great, misshapen head. Joanna hadn’t taken much interest in the child when she was pregnant. She had her own problems and was prepared to let everyone else take the decisions. But when she realised the baby was a misfit too things were different. She began to make a fuss. She said she would keep the baby after all. She would give up art school and bring the baby back to the Cadver. She blamed herself, of course, and thought if she hadn’t been taking heroin the baby would be perfect. You can imagine what the Grenvilles thought about that. It was bad enough having an illegitimate grandchild. But a baby as ugly and deformed as Cassie in the Cadver was more than they could bear.’

‘So they came to see you?’