‘I was trying to find Mum in my memories, but instead I kept finding you.’ Mark’s tone is weighted with accusation. ‘Every time, I’d go under and he’d bring me back to that night, I kept seeing you in your shed at the end of the garden, and I was locked out, looking in. You were with a woman, but it wasn’t Mum. It was someone else. I don’t remember much more, but I remember that feeling of being locked out – like I couldn’t get to you. Like I was shut out.’

‘Oh, Mark.’ It’s too much. All of this is too much.

‘They asked me afterwards whether you had any special hiding place. That’s one of the things I do remember – some detective crouching beside me, asking me to point out anywhere in the house or garden where you might tuck things away to keep them hidden.’ Mark’s eyes shine too brightly in the gloom of the kitchen. ‘I thought of your shed. I thought of you and that woman and what you were doing in the shed. So I didn’t tell them. I thought I was protecting you.’

Anton cannot look at his son as he says these things.

‘It was only later – years later – that I realized they were looking for the knife. They wanted to know where you had hidden the knife.’

The air between them has grown very still. In the silence, Anton knows that Mark is waiting, and when he looks up, he sees the expectation in his son’s face.

‘Well?’ Mark asks, impatience, desperation in his voice, which trembles now as he adds: ‘Where did you hide it?’

‘I didn’t … You couldn’t possibly think –’

There’s a sudden bang from above their heads.

Mark’s eyes move towards the ceiling. ‘Is there someone upstairs?’ he asks, incredulous.

Anton watches with alarm as Mark gets to his feet. ‘Just hang on a second, son!’

But Mark is already out in the hall, taking the stairs two at a time. He stops at the return and stares up. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.

Anton listens, hears her hesitation. Then her voice comes weakly: ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb.’

And there she is, stepping quickly and lightly past Mark, her dressing-gown clutched tightly about her chest. Her hair looks dull and messy, her face gaunt. He catches the look Mark gives her, the way he takes in her bare feet, her pale legs.

‘Please. Now just wait,’ Anton says, panic coming into his voice as she moves past him. ‘You’re not well, my dear. Please.’ Then, looking up the stairs, he adopts a firm tone: ‘Mark, I can explain all this.’

But Leah is opening the door now that leads to the inner stairs.