‘Do you remember that time he fell out the tree and I thought he was dead?’ Bonnie says. ‘He didn’t move, he just laid there.’ She hangs her arms out to the side, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. She looks comical and it’s hard not to smile. ‘He’d been secretly watching Iona and me and the branch had snapped beneath that heaving body of his and he just plopped on the ground at our feet.’

‘Vaguely.’ Was that the time she’d been screaming at Mum in the kitchen about him?

‘I wished for him not to move for a moment, and then he did, and I wanted to kill him. He was always watching us. He embarrassed me so much,’ she says. ‘No one understood that boy.’

‘No one tried,’ I murmur.

‘As far back as I can remember he was always playing on his own, wheeling those cars of his round and round in the sand. I used to ask myself why they spent so much effort trying to work me out when anyone could see it was Danny who needed help.’

‘When did those sessions stop?’ I ask her. ‘The ones Mum took you to.’

‘Stay and Play?’ Bonnie shrugs and scoops up a spoonful of soup. ‘When I was about seven. I don’t know. Whenever it was that Mum suddenly whisked me out of there one day and said she didn’t need to know any more.’

‘Any more about what?’ I ask but I know Bonnie won’t go further. She tells me she doesn’t have any more answers, but I’m not sure if it’s the truth or if she simply doesn’t want to face them.

‘He only got worse as he got older,’ she says, turning the attention back on Danny. ‘That last summer he was a nightmare. You must remember the sleep-out at the beach?’

‘Of course I do.’ I had been there too when Danny was accused of grabbing one of the girls.

‘And the way he was with Iona,’ she murmurs. ‘He made it awkward for me. I was surprised she hung around as much as she did when Danny was there.’

‘He liked her,’ I say, ‘because she was so nice to him.’

Bonnie looks away, but not before I notice the tiniest flicker of a cloud passing over her face. ‘I went to Mum’s grave the other day,’ she says. ‘Did you put those flowers there?’

I sit back in the chair. I shouldn’t be surprised by Bonnie’s change of topic but she still manages to catch me off guard. I don’t bother answering when she knows I go every week and leave flowers.

‘She would have hated what’s happened, wouldn’t she?’

I nod, and in a way I’m glad she’s not here to see it.

‘Do you want coffee?’ Bonnie asks after we’ve finished lunch.