She went in and shut the door, and Peter must’ve been listening for her because immediately she could hear his tread on the stairs, and by the time she’d shed her coat, there he was. He looked shocking, strained and whey-faced, and his eyes were red with fatigue or sorrow, she didn’t know which. She held her arms out to him and he stepped into them, and she hugged him for a while, without speaking. He stood in the circle of her embrace, half a foot taller than her but passive as a sad, sad child. Then he said, ‘There’s summat I need to tell you,’ and she let him go.

‘What?’ she asked, but he just walked away, through the kitchen and into the living room, so she followed him, her heart hammering. He didn’t sit, but paced about, back and forth.

‘Peter, please,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’

He stood still then, and looked at her. ‘There’s trouble coming,’ he said.

‘What kind of trouble?’ It seemed to Alison that there was nothing but trouble in the Connor household. There could be little else to come that hadn’t already been visited upon them.

Peter sniffed and sighed – a long exhalation, as if bracing himself for what he had to say.

‘Peter,’ Alison said. ‘Just tell me.’

‘OK, I will,’ he said. ‘I will. I’m queer.’ There was a sort of challenge in his eyes now as he waited for a response. She was silent, but she stepped towards him and took his hand. He was trembling, as if he was very cold, and he said, ‘Me and Toddy, we’re …’ He stopped, shook his head furiously, then said, ‘And Martin fucking bastard Baxter knows.’ In his eyes, there were the beginnings of tears.

Alison tried to process what he was saying as swiftly as she could. He needed her, when, for as long as she could remember, it’d always been she who’d needed him. But now, for Peter, for him, she had to be steady and strong, and, after all, this wasn’t a disaster, this wasn’t something to fear. She hadn’t known though, she hadn’t known this about him, and she felt stupid and slow and thoughtless, as if all her life she’d looked only to herself and her own concerns, and had altogether missed the truth at the centre of her lovely, tender, patient, dependable brother’s being.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘You and Toddy … it doesn’t matter, Peter, does it?’

‘He’s been following us.’ His voice cracked with angry distress. ‘The bastard. He’s taken pictures, Alison. He’s shown me.’

She was horrified, appalled, confused. She wasn’t sure what Peter meant. Pictures? Why? Of what? She felt too young and too ignorant to deal with her brother’s obvious agony.

‘Pictures?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean?’