‘I can remember her, you know, Fen. She used to come to Regents Park where I went with my nanny every day. I can remember her hair. She still has got the same hair, crackling and so red. It was like looking in the mirror, only I couldn’t see it then. But now, when I look at Nat and young Henry, I can see her in them. I can see her in me every time I look in the mirror. I can’t believe she’s my mother. She looks my age, for Christ’s sake! She looks just like my bloody sister!’

Fenella put a slim hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

‘She is your mother, no matter how she looks. Try and see it from her point of view. Try and understand.’

Benedict laughed softly.

‘I’ve been trying to do that since the day I found it all out. I think the worst thing of all is the fact my so-called father could have waited all that time to hurt me and Isabel. It’s sick.’

Fenella sniffed loudly.

‘He was a sick man. I thought we’d already established that much. He was rotten with his own hatred. Don’t you go and make the same mistake.’

Benedict sat forward in his chair. ‘I don’t hate her, Fen, that’s the trouble.’

Fenella sighed and said gently, ‘Drink your coffee, Ben, before it gets cold.’

Briony lay in her bunk listening to the chatting of her cell mates. Marla was speaking in a low voice and Briony felt a deep sadness as the women spoke.

‘My daughter’s still in care now. I was homeless, see, so they took her off me. I was lodging with this right spiv in Canning Town. Well, he took me rent and done a moonlight, only he don’t really own the drum, see. Some other geezer does, a Pakistani called Pardel. Well, he had me removed, bag and baggage. So the Welfare came and took her off me. That was nine years ago. I was picked up the next night at King’s Cross for soliciting, so when we got to court, they’d made her a ward of court, saying she was in moral danger with me! I was only soliciting to get the money for a meal and a bed like. I was hardly an old hand at the game. I mean at my age, I ask you? Anyway, I just give up after that. This is about my seventh time in here. I’m hoping to get a result and go to an open to finish me sentence. They’ll bring me girl if I get an open, see.’

Briony asked softly, ‘How old is your daughter now?’

Marla sighed in the darkness.

‘Just on twelve. She’s lovely, beautiful, like her father. He was a West Indian. She’s half-caste.’