‘Yes, but …’ She was different. The naive confidence was gone. It used to burn out of her eyes in her barbecue videos – the faith that everything would always be okay for her. ‘I’m trying to get my head around being Ivan’s daughter. I was seriously freaked out about it, but … well, I suppose I just have to get used to it. He had more excuse than most for his behaviour.’

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ Bex said. ‘You’re clearly fine. We’re the product of nurture more than nature and Ivan had no chance to be normal. What a tragic life he led.’

‘I know,’ Violet said. ‘It doesn’t mean he’s passed on … anything to me.’ She looked over at the pigs and smiled. Two of the tiny piglets were chasing each other round like puppies.

‘Frankie’s coming to stay with me,’ Bex said. ‘I’ll make a crappy mum-substitute but I suspect even I’ll be better than what she’s used to.’

‘That’s great news’ I said. ‘And how about Nina and Sofia?’

Bex shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t imagine … More than thirty years trapped under a barn. All that time I thought she’d abandoned me, she was there. If only I’d realised.’

‘You couldn’t have known,’ I said.

‘He was obsessed with keeping water out of that barn.’ Bex looked up at the sky, which was beginning to deepen into pink. ‘I remember when I visited when I was sixteen, he directed it to flood the house rather than end up in the barn. I can see us all sitting in the kitchen, me soaking wet and shocked and wondering why on earth I’d even come to Gritton, and Daniel having a go at Dad because he’d let the old books get wet. The books that were rescued from the manor house. I thought Dad was concerned about the pigs.’

She took a deep, shuddery breath. ‘Talking to Nina, it’s obvious she never gave up. She played the long game, and pretended she’d resigned herself to her life, so Tony would trust her, but all the while she was waiting for her chance. Even though, once he micro-chipped them, it was pretty much impossible. If Tony hadn’t perpetuated the rumour about the Pale Child, someone would have found Ivan the first time he escaped and worked out what was going on. But people ran away from him. It makes me sick. Sick to my stomach that he’s my own father.’

I wasn’t sure what to say. Not sure how these women were supposed to cope with finding out the truth about their family. ‘I should have spotted it,’ I said. ‘We saw from the drone footage that there was a septic tank for that pig barn, but we just assumed it had been converted to a home.’