‘Kazi loved the canal.’ Her watery smile faded as her mind slipped sideways. ‘Do you remember that time he took you, Maya and Sabbir fishing? It was a scorching summer.’ She sniggered. ‘You all came back drenched, but no-one would tell me what happened.’

I fell into the memory. The four of us clambering into the old wooden boat. Me, the youngest and shortest, struggling to climb in. ‘The boat capsized, and we all ended up swimming.’ Why hadn’t we told Mum what happened? It was time to change tack before we both got lost. ‘I’ve brought your phone back so you can have the radio on again. It needed a new battery.’ I took the old iPhone from my bag and placed it on her bedside table; felt a twinge of guilt because it had needed a new battery, but I hadn’t told her I’d taken it for fingerprint testing.

Mum had drifted now, and her expression was glazed.

‘Shall I get you some fresh water?’ I took the plastic jug and beaker over to the sink, swilled them out, relieved to have the time to collect my thoughts. Mum and I were both wading around in different versions of unknowing: Mum, it seemed, couldn’t reliably remember whether Dad was still alive, and I needed reliable evidence. The fingerprints on the iPhone were more recent than Suzie’s photos from a year ago. ‘Mum, has Dad visited you recently?’ She’d first told me this a year earlier and intermittently since then.

‘Kazi?’

I had to hold my nerve. ‘Yes.’

‘You know perfectly well he left us.’

‘Uh-huh. But you’ve said a few times that he’s visited you. Here.’

‘Have I?’

‘And Jasmina said you’d told her that you’d woken up and found Dad here, and then he disappeared.’

‘Argh. My memory . . . It’s like everything’s slipping away . . . ’ It was as though she was genuinely trying to reach through the fog and recall what she’d experienced.

‘If Dad was at Józef’s funeral a year ago . . . ’ I had to say it, I had to tell her, ‘ . . . it means that he’s probably still alive now.’ I took out the image that Suzie had printed, of Dad, Cyril and Ody, sharing a drink to commemorate Józef’s life.

Her eyes were wide now, gaping with the years of not knowing.

I passed her the photo, and quietly said, ‘Mum, I’m sure Dad’s still alive.’ I tapped on his image, and summoned the courage to voice the question I’d wanted to ask for twenty-nine years. ‘Did you know?’

And once the question was out, I felt a rush of relief and release . . . followed by a thud of fear.

What was it?

Why had we all been so scared to broach the subject?

Maya, 10.30 p.m.

Maya, 10.30 p.m.