‘Ask him if he visited. If he exaggerated how poorly you were. Ask him if he remembers telling me I wasn’t fit to be a father. That I’d do the same thing to Casey that my dad did to me.’

‘I’m not going to ask him any of this. Even if he did show up and say those things, he was right, wasn’t he? Especially if all it took was a quick suggestion from a total stranger to convince you to ditch me and Casey.’

I close my eyes. Until yesterday I thought the same: that I was 100 per cent to blame. But talking to Gemma has made me see it’s not that simple.

‘I was lost, Angelica. I’ve only just admitted that to myself, never mind anyone else. Stuff that happened when I was a kid made me think I was bad to the bone. Didn’t deserve love and could only ever hurt the people I got close to. And I think your dad saw that and used it against me.’

‘Spare me the psychobabble, Dan. My dad isn’t exactly perfect, but I don’t go on about it, do I? And you had a choice, whereas I didn’t have the luxury of changing my mind about being a parent.’

‘No. And you’ve done an amazing job, but—’

My dad isn’t exactly perfect.

And that’s when I get it. Why we found each other on a crowded, sodden festival site. It’s made no sense to me for thirteen years, but now it totally does.

It’s because her dad and my dad are the same.

OK, they didn’t seem the same, outwardly. One is rich, entitled, a pillar of society. The other is – was, for all I know – broke, with a giant chip on his shoulder, and contempt for anyone who tries to live an honest life.

But at heart, Pete Lennox and Vaughn Parr are both controlling bullies, imposing their dodgy values onto their kids. And they’ve taken too much – not only from Angelica and me, but from Casey too.

It has to end now.

‘Angelica, I can’t undo my mistakes. I regret all the years I’ve not been there. But your dad played us both. He even offered to pay me off, to stop me being involved in his granddaughter’s life. What kind of person does that?’

Angelica stares at me. ‘You took money from him?’

She still automatically believes the worst of me. I can’t blame her. Until Gemma came into my life, I always thought the worst of me too.

‘No. But he offered it. A bribe to stay out of your lives. When that didn’t work, he told me I was poisonous – and because my own dad had been telling me that, in different ways, all the time I was growing up, I believed him. But I don’t believe it now. I’m not perfect. But I want to be in Casey’s life and prove to both of you that I deserve to be there.’