‘As he has done over the years, with documents.’

‘I thought it was a coincidence he came across us.’

‘For the unknowing, there are always coincidences,’ Ron said. ‘He didn’t do it as often as his father, but these people can’t help rigging the game. I asked myself the same question you have asked me. Why was I doing this? What did I need that he could give me? You know what I want. I have submitted my request again and again and again. What, you think I would give up just because you and Norma wouldn’t get me out? I went to a higher power. I gave him his chance. I told him that if he did not get me released from my cell, I would disclose his secrets. The boy is a fool. I told you that. He thought I was a silly old goat. He thought I was bluffing.’

‘So this is what, retribution? Blackmail?’

‘I am not proud of what I have done. I have notarised building certificates, passport applications, approvals … Don’t ask me what I have done for them or what the consequences are. I do not know. The burden of not knowing how much corruption I have enabled has weighed heavily on me. Do you understand? I am a crook. The great misjudgement that boy and his father made was to think that my respectability would protect us all. They were wrong. I am not good or respectable. Never have been.’

‘Dad, I don’t believe you’re a crook.’ Gordon swallowed. He wondered at the despair that must have overwhelmed his parents when Owen died. If Ben went off a cliff today, perish the thought, whatever the cause, Gordon’s anger would be limitless. He could beat to a pulp the first person who stepped into his path. Kelly’s voice came back to his mind—what had she told Ben? That ‘your grandparents already think Owen jumped’? Was that what had turned Ron from an honest man into a cynic? Had Gordon’s lie created a vacuum into which Ron’s worst instincts had flooded? There was a connection that his father might, must, have made. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

If Gordon was not mistaken, there was forgiveness in the watery-eyed look his father was levelling at him. Maybe even a glimmer of comprehension.