But I’m no longer listening. Dad would have been the last one to see Iona because he’d have taken her back on his ferry.

Yet I’m pretty sure my dad was lying.

On Wednesdays Olivia is always at work, which means she won’t be at home, looking after Dad. This is a good thing, I tell myself as I dial their home number and wait for the connection. It’s him I need to speak to. I listen to the rapid beats of my heart and when he answers I draw in a tight breath. ‘Hi, Dad, it’s me, Stella.’

‘Stella …’ His voice is warm and soft, and as my heartbeats slow I toy with the idea that I could have an entire conversation with him that doesn’t need to even nudge the edges of what’s happened. I could avoid it altogether.

‘How are you, my darling?’ he asks and the familiar cloak of guilt wraps itself around me. I know he probably doesn’t remember how long it’s been since I last saw him but it feels like he is brushing over it because he’ll always forgive me.

My fingers play with the seam of my coat, rubbing it roughly as my breath lodges in my throat. ‘I’m good. How are you, Dad?’

‘Not so bad, love,’ he says. ‘Not so bad. I’ve been in the garden. It’s starting to rain. Have you got rain?’

I glance outside the café window. The sky has darkened and it looks like it might start. ‘Not yet,’ I tell him.

‘And how’s Andrew?’

I close my eyes at the name. How he manages to pluck it out so easily every time I have no idea, but Andrew and I split up two years ago. ‘Fine, Dad,’ I say. ‘Andrew’s fine.’

‘That’s good,’ he murmurs, his voice drifting away, and I wonder if there’s a chance Olivia is there. Often I’d have to haul Dad back into my conversation when she was; we’d always be pulling him like a tug of war.

In the early days I asked Dad if I could see him on his own and to my surprise he once agreed. But when I turned up at the café I saw Olivia hovering over the table, flapping the menu in front of him as she impatiently waited for him to choose.

‘I thought she wasn’t coming,’ I said, as I slipped on to a chair opposite him and she went to order.

‘Oh, you don’t mind, do you, love?’ he smiled, asking so casually as if he had no idea there was a problem, or if he did he was too scared to confront it.