I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable under their expectant gaze. I chose my words carefully, suddenly aware of how fragile they both were.

“In part, yes. I want to hear, if I may, about both those things. But the article is also about the new branch of Dads Without Borders in Plymouth. So, I do have some questions about Grace’s dad and what happened in your relationship with him.”

A frost seemed to pass across Meg’s face and her eyes became hard, unseeing. Grace turned anxiously from her mum to me, then back again.

“What do you want to know about Simon?” Meg’s mouth pinched with the question.

“Do the two of you ever speak?” I knew from having interviewed Simon that they didn’t, but I wanted to hear her side of the story.

“To the man who is responsible for my son’s death? To the man who used to be physically violent, who tried to kidnap my daughter? No. I don’t speak to him.” There was a sob in her throat and her face reddened, while the color seemed to drain from Grace’s already pale skin. Meg’s words built an invisible wall between us. Simon was clearly not a topic for discussion. Grace stared at me, and behind her glasses I saw her eyes had blurred with tears. Her hand searched across the table; she needed to be held by her mum. They found each other like magnets. I apologized, asked to see the photos of Grace in hospital again to calm Meg, to lighten the mood. Later, when Meg stood up to go to the toilet, she winced, rubbed her lower back. When she saw me looking she shook her head like it was nothing. “Old back injury,” she said, “from a long time ago. He pushed me down the stairs.” She put a hand on Grace’s shoulder in a way that meant she didn’t want to say anything more about it.

As soon as Meg was out of the door, Grace leaned forward in her chair and asked in a whisper, “Have you seen him? Have you seen my dad?”

The memory comes back to me, clear as a day, and as I pull onto the main road a sign reminds me how close to Woodgreen Avenue I am right now—just five minutes away. I could drive by the house, see what’s going on. I won’t even get out of my car. No one will notice I’m there and no one need ever know I went. And I’d still be at Dr. Bunce’s in plenty of time. So why not? Once I’ve been, my curiosity will be sated and I won’t need to go again.

Fuck it.

I turn off the main road.

The Summervale Estate is a maze of identical Spam-colored houses built in the nineties, an uninspiring lump a couple of miles outside Ashford. Only a handful of locals actually live in the town now, most of them having sold up to rich families looking for a holiday home with sea views years ago. I don’t blame them. Many of the people here found themselves newly poor and unskilled after the collapse of the tin-mining industry in the nineties, so when the estate agents told them what their tiny fishing cottages were worth they were already packed and ready to move to new-build suburbia.