Cara falls silent. She takes a great breath and looks at them. They still look calm, totally sympathetic. She feels as if she is betraying Philip, that these are not her secrets to tell, yet she needs to be free at last of all the concealment.

‘Philip was gay,’ she says at last. ‘Forty years ago that still meant a very great deal, and Philip was ambitious. As a married man nobody would suspect; no questions would be asked.’

Oddly, they look more horrified now than they did when she told them that she’d caused Joe’s death.

‘But how did you feel about that?’ asks Fliss. ‘Not about him being gay but his asking you to marry him? Was that fair of him? Surely he was taking advantage of the situation.’

‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ Cara tells her quickly. ‘It wasn’t like a bribe or blackmail or anything. You see, I knew he loved me, very deeply, just not in that way. He was prepared for me to say “no” but he wanted to protect me. I was pregnant with Joe’s child and he knew me well enough to know that I could never give it up. I had to deal with all of this, so why not with Philip?’

She pauses again. ‘And then, not long after we were married, I lost the baby. I was devastated. I felt as if I’d killed Joe all over again. But Philip was there, he shared my grief, bound it up, carried it with me.’ She stops, fresh tears on her cheeks. ‘Philip was a good, kind man. I know he would have liked to have been a father, but I wasn’t able to have another child.’

‘It was the most terrible tragedy,’ says Hal at last, ‘but I wish you hadn’t crucified yourself all these years because of it. Awful things happen – car accidents, all sorts of things. You weren’t to blame.’

She looks up at him. ‘I ran away,’ she says. ‘I left Joe lying there.’

‘But you knew people would come. You knew they would deal with it. Your reaction was natural, Cara. How old were you? Nineteen? Twenty? Alone in a foreign country. For God’s sake!’

He seems almost angry, but oddly his anger gives her courage, hope. They are on her side.

‘And you’ve never told anyone?’ asks Fliss gently. ‘Not even Max?’

Cara shakes her head. ‘Max knew about the pregnancy, but he never knew the child wasn’t Philip’s. It was best that nobody knew anything about Joe. Philip was implicated in a way. I mean, he could have reported Joe’s death, couldn’t he, but he didn’t. It was best that we kept it all to ourselves. And we were happy. I miss him terribly.’