‘He didn’t leave us though, did he?’ Suzy said. ‘Not for you, or for any of the others. He might have bought you all off with your posh flats, but he didn’t want to live with you, did he? Any of you. His little harem, all under one roof, where he could keep an eye on you, control you, buy your silence.’

‘What …?’

‘But you were flings, the lot of you, and bloody expensive ones too,’ Suzy went on, hardly stopping to draw breath. ‘If you’d met someone else and got married, you’d have had to leave, wouldn’t you? Or buy the place. You wouldn’t have been allowed to keep on renting it then. All part of the legal stuff he tied us all up in, so I’m told, but oh no, you didn’t even do that, did you, Miss Cardew? No marriage for you, while you could stay on here for as long as you liked. What man would be worth giving up all this, eh? Best flat in the block, and you know it. Still bloodsucking all these years later. Do you have any idea how much I could make if only I was allowed to sell? But I’m not allowed. Only to you, but oh no, you didn’t want to buy, did you? Well, why would you, with the rock-bottom rent you pay?’ She was crying properly now, the frustration and pain so evident in her screwed-up face that Madi had no idea what to say.

‘Of all the stupid short-sighted mistakes he made … but it’s not about the money. That’s not what hurts, not really. He was my dad. He brought me back presents every time he went away, sat me on his knee, read me stories, dressed up as Santa at Christmas. He was only fifty-five when he died, and I was just twelve. A late baby, after years of thinking it would never happen, and he doted on me. Would have done anything for me. I still remember the smell of him all these years later, his soap, his aftershave, his big hands ruffling my hair, the feel of his stubble when I touched his face. He wasn’t some famous actor to me, he was just my dad, and I wish I could always remember him that way. Not as this womanising …’

‘I had no idea.’ Madi was stunned, not sure how she was managing to stay on her feet.

‘Well, guess what. Neither did I,’ Suzy went on, sobbing quietly. ‘Not about the women, or the flats. I never understood why Mum didn’t sell the lot when he died and just walk away. Not until the solicitor spelt it all out to me, years later, after she died. What I had inherited, special clauses and sitting tenants and all. Oh, she knew about his affairs all right, my mum. Whether she knew while he was still alive and turned a blind eye – hah, the irony! – or only found out afterwards I don’t know, and I never will know now, will I? What she had to put up with. My poor mum. But she kept quiet about it. Never said a word, in all these years. Just left it all for me to read after she’d gone, in a letter. She kept his sordid secrets, and her own dignity, and tried to protect me from it all, right to the end. She even bloody well apologised, for having to break it to me. The truth, at last. As if she had anything to apologise for. And now I’ve lost her too.’