‘You know how it goes, Diane. This lot won’t let me get to bed before midnight. But I won’t be later than that.’ He kisses her cheek.

Diane smiles. ‘Promises, promises.’

In the main house, Diane shows me to the turret room: a round room with a Johnny Rotten decal painted over a fake fireplace and bright white walls. I spend a moment looking at Johnny Rotten, following his lines and curves.

‘Cool picture,’ I say. ‘I love the Sex Pistols.’

‘One of Michael’s set painters did it,’ says Diane. ‘He has a talent for decals.’

The bed looks comfortable, made up with red sheets, and there’s a private bathroom and shower with towels and a basket of organic cookies. There’s also a bookshelf with a few Zen Buddhism books on it, one tattered Dicken’s novel and a book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales.

Diane follows my eyeline and goes to the bookshelf. ‘Ah. Someone asked about this one.’ She picks up the book of fairy tales. ‘I’ll bring it down.’

‘This is an eclectic mix,’ I say, looking at the books. ‘Asian spirituality, fairy tales and Dickens.’

‘Oh, Michael picks up all sorts of different books on his travels,’ Diane tells me. ‘I bet he hasn’t even read half of them. But at least if you can’t sleep, you can broaden your mind instead. We’ll have a chat over breakfast tomorrow, okay? And work out how to handle things going forward.’

‘You mean handle my mother?’ I say.

‘Yes.’ Diane hesitates in the doorway, then comes to sit beside me on the bed. ‘Look, I’m angry with Lorna. You may as well know. I’ll never forget what she did. But I’m Catholic. We believe in forgiveness. The aim is to move forward.’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Anything, love.’ Diane rests the book in her lap and strokes hair from my face.

‘What do you think happened to Cat’s daughter? Annalise?’

‘How do you know about her?’

‘Old newspaper articles. When I was looking up stuff about Michael.’ I watch Diane closely. ‘And … my middle name is Annalise.’

‘God.’ Diane’s eyes widen. ‘Why on earth would Lorna … Oh, who knows with that woman. Never mind.’ She sighs. ‘I have no idea what happened to Cat’s daughter. She was a very sweet girl but a bit of a mess. I always thought perhaps a suicide, but they never found … you know, a body or anything. Cat’s whole rock and roll lifestyle certainly took its toll on the poor girl. It couldn’t have been easy being Cat Cannon’s daughter. Maybe she just wanted anonymity and is safe and well somewhere. It’s the happiest ending any of us could hope for.’

‘My mother says something really bad happened to Annalise,’ I say.