After giving me the silent treatment for a day, she had sat me on her lap – a rare treat – and told me about Sex. Sex was something grown-ups did, she’d said. She’d described how it worked in a matter-of-fact way and then her face had gone very pale and she’d said that sometimes, in the outside, men had evil urges that made them turn their attention to little girls who were too young and too small and too innocent to have Sex. She said there were lots of these men out there, which was why she could not, for one second, consider taking me outside for a night-time walk.

At the time, this had been enough to stop me asking to go outside, but as I grew older, I learned from my books that, in spite of these dangerous men, people took their chance in the outside and never got hurt. I wanted that chance too. I craved it. Even if it was just at night where the light couldn’t harm me.

My fingers felt sticky with sweat. They quivered slightly as, unable to stop myself, I flicked to the next photograph. Sick rose in my throat. What Mother’s grandfather was doing to Mother’s twin sister was awful, and the fear and pain in her eyes …

I closed the album with a loud slap and shook my head, trying to vanish the things I’d seen. My mind struggled to process everything. I closed my eyes, clenched my hands into fists. Aunt Olivia could not have been any older than me in those pictures. My great-grandfather had hurt Mother’s sister, Olivia. Had he hurt Mother too?

One more question circled my brain like a bird of prey: why would Mother keep these pictures? This … evidence.

The only explanation was that Mother did not know they were up here. I stared around the attic with new eyes, unable to search any other boxes, unable to forget what I had seen. That poor girl. Mother had warned me about the evil that lurked in men. I thought about poor Clarabelle. How she too had been hurt by her own father. No wonder Mother had rescued her; she had seen the same terrified expression in the little girl’s eyes and known what that evil man was doing to her. It was clear now that Mother had also been hurt – but why had she said that her grandfather was a good man? It didn’t make sense.

I rushed away from the foul album and tripped over a box. My hands and knees thudded onto the floorboards and I screamed as something sharp dug into my palm. I lifted my hand and gaped at a small hole in my skin, at the blood rising up like water out of a flood hole. How would I explain this to Mother?