Suki hitched in a breath, looked down at the tissues, swiped at her eyes. With trembling fingers she started picking at the cellophane, but she was shaking so hard with the cold that she couldn’t get the pack open.

‘For God’s sake!’ Connor snatched it off her, opened it, tossed out a couple of tissues.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled, dabbing at her face.

Connor flicked the rain out of his hair, rubbed a hand over his face. Wondered what the fuck to do now. He stopped moving when he realized she was staring at him.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’ She gulped, wiped her eyes again.

‘No, come on. What?’

‘You look a bit like him.’ Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘You look like Josh.’

‘I said shut up with the crying, didn’t I?’

Her accent came as a surprise. American, and with a real southern twang to it. Yet this was Claire Milo’s daughter, and Claire was English. How did that work? And he was nothing like Dad, not really. No way would he have tolerated Mum’s mouthy dominating bullshit for so long.

‘I’m sorry.’ She sniffed, wiped her nose. ‘I know how it must seem, to you. That my mother’s some sort of awful scarlet woman . . .’

‘You mean she’s not?’ Connor demanded through gritted teeth. ‘My dad was married, with kids. You think that was the right thing she did, go with him when she knew that?’

She heaved a sigh. ‘Look. They were together before . . . then they split up. Once they met again in New York, it was a done deal.’

‘Dad was married,’ said Connor.

‘Yeah. To a woman he didn’t love. That he’d never loved.’ Suki was shivering now. ‘It’s cold,’ she moaned, clutching herself.

‘Oh, for fuck’s . . .’ Connor switched on the engine, flicked on the heater.

‘Thanks,’ she said faintly.

The roar of the heater filled the car. The rain hammered on the roof.

‘He was so unhappy with her. With your mother,’ she said.

‘Don’t you fucking dare,’ said Connor, although he knew it was true.

Suki was staring at his face with those big baby-blues. ‘Don’t you know what happened? Didn’t he ever tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’

‘That your mom drove mine out of town.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means she scared her to death, left her with no choice but to run away.’

‘How? Your mother don’t seem the type to frighten that easy.’

‘Maybe she isn’t so much now. But then? She was just a girl and she was terrified. Your mother had some bad friends. Scary ones.’

‘Such as . . . ?’ What a load of bullcrap this was.

‘The Cleaver family. Do you know them?’

Oh fuck. Into Connor’s mind flashed an image of Jeb Cleaver, coming at him with the axe raised, a crazed glint in his eye.