It’d been a long time since I had spoken on the subject of my mother or Joe to anyone. With friends, it never seemed the right time. With lovers it was even trickier. At the beginning of a relationship, when things were going well, there was the fear it would color how the person looked at you. At the end, it felt manipulative, a plea for exculpation, at worst an attempt to handcuff someone to you through pity.

Alice got up and took our plates to the dishwasher. I watched her steadily. When she turned, she acknowledged what I’d said with the smallest of nods. Her face betrayed neither sympathy nor disbelief, for which I felt a small, seeping gratitude.

Our eyes met and I realized Alice was wavering, was on the verge of telling me something.

“I lied to the police for David. I said he was with me from two a.m. After he was with you. But he wasn’t. I didn’t see him till breakfast. He had that criminal record, didn’t he? Not only the theft, but the assault would have been there, buried among the paperwork.”

“The assault?”

“The teacher. They called him Badger. David blacked his eyes. He had to go to the hospital. Or that’s what he said at first. Then he withdrew it and said David had stolen his jacket when he was out having supper. Then later he changed his story again. Unreliable. Rob and his friends were always doing impressions of him, a funny, pathetic little man. David once said, and he wasn’t joking, that he loved him. Badger, that is, loving David. And he ruined him, didn’t he? I’ve always thought what happened to your friend was an accident. I mean, David wasn’t dangerous. Not physically, not in that way. I don’t think so…” Alice’s brow furrowed. “But then I don’t know what he was like really. Did any of us? Still, I lied for him and I’m afraid I kept it hanging over him. After the way he’d treated me. But I got tired of it in the end, dragging him about. April was the end of it. I dumped him. He got the boot from his job for conspiring with one of the dealers to rig an auction. He didn’t want what he was supposed to want, what he said he wanted—to do well, move in the right circles, get on. Or he wanted something else more. What can you do with someone like that? If I were you, I’d forget all this. Peter will turn up again, or he won’t, but it won’t be your fault.” She looked at the clock. “Time to fetch Tim from school. Sorry I couldn’t help more.”