I put my fork down for a minute and grab the photo back. Black and white, crumpled up and speckled with age. The man is standing outside a Post Office holding his police helmet. The uniform looks like something from a comedy sketch. He’s tall and lanky. He looks too fragile to hold a truncheon, let alone use one. My Grandfather. I’ve never seen him before in my life.

‘Bloody hell he looks just like you.’ I look up at Alex and back to the photo. ‘When did she show you this?’

He shrugs. ‘I dunno. Not that long ago. She wanted me to know who I had to thank for the hair.’

‘I thought that came from the other side.’

‘No. Granddad’s was auburn. That’s different. It’s almost normal.’

I laugh. I reach out to touch his head. He leans back into the sofa, away from me.

I didn’t think there were any photos. All she ever said was that he died in the war. And Dad never mentioned anything about him. Only her Mum. Be thankful she kicked the bucket before you came along, he whispered once under his breath, between you and me she was a right piece of work.

‘What’s Ned short for?’ Alex says, out of the blue.

‘What?’

‘Ned. The name.’

‘Edward, I think. Or Edgar. Something like that.’

He points at the photo. ‘But he was called William.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who’s Ned then?’

‘No idea. Why d’you ask?’

He shrugs. ‘No reason, really.’

But his cheeks are going pink. And his face. It’s the look he used to have when I caught him hiding cabbage under his mashed potato or stashing conkers in his sock drawer.

‘Alex.’

‘It’s nothing. Just sometimes she calls me Ned by accident,’ he says.

I don’t know what to say. I sniff my fingers again but the smell is wearing off.

‘Sorry, can’t help you with that one, buddy.’

I turn the sound up on the TV and he watches monkeys swinging through the rainforest canopy. We pretend it’s like any other Friday night. But the photo is there in the corner of my eye. My grandfather, who looks too weak to go to war, to carry stretchers on the battle field, to give commands and solve crimes and make any kind of name for himself. This photo that no one ever showed me. And Ned, whoever he is. It bothers me, this mystery name. Something about it gives me the creeps. There’s a noise like falling ash in the chimney. The sound of someone running up the stairs in the house next door.

‘Maybe we should take her home with us for a few days, just till she’s feeling better,’ I say, just thinking out loud.

Alex snorts. ‘Good luck with that,’ he says, ‘she’d never come.’