‘I can manage on my own,’ Gemma shouted at him when he arrived at the house. She tried to bar his way in and he had to push her aside.

‘No, you can’t. You may be ahead a year at school, but you’re still not even seventeen, and won’t be an adult legally till you’re eighteen. If you don’t let me look after you, you could even be taken into care, because you have no other relatives in Perth.’

‘You don’t want to look after me!’

He stared at her in surprise. ‘Where the hell did you get that idea? Of course I do. I want very much to take care of you now.’

‘Then why did you hardly ever come to see me after you’d left?’

He sighed. ‘You know why. Your mother wouldn’t allow me to see you more often.’

‘What? You’re lying. She told me you didn’t want to see me more often.’

This accusation cropped up at regular intervals and for all her claims to be grown up, there were times when Gemma still acted like a small, sulking child about her parents’ divorce.

‘You should have treated Mum better then she wouldn’t have divorced you,’ she muttered.

‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault. We just … grew apart. She was the one who suggested divorcing, actually. I wanted to try counselling.’ Because he hadn’t wanted to lose his daughter. He held up one hand as Gemma opened her mouth. ‘I’m not arguing about that again. If you won’t believe the truth, I can’t do anything about it.’

‘I’ve only got your word for what the truth is … now!’

He ignored that, reminding himself how badly she must be hurting. ‘I’ll go and pick up some of my clothes and move into the spare bedroom. Do we need to go food shopping?’

Silence, then she nodded. ‘I don’t have much money and we were due to go shopping. Mum used credit cards most of the time, not cash.’

‘You’d better come with me, then. You’ll know better than me what we need at the supermarket. After that,’ he hesitated but it had to be done, ‘we’ll need to arrange the funeral.’

Which made her start weeping and slam off into her bedroom.

He gave her a few minutes then yelled from outside the door. ‘I’m leaving in ten minutes. If you want to help sort out the arrangements you’ll need to come with me.’

She joined him a couple of minutes later.

He went to his flat first to get some clothes and other stuff. Gemma stared round it as if she’d never seen it before, though she’d been here a few times. ‘Pokey, isn’t it? No wonder you want to come back to Mum’s house.’

‘That house is still half mine legally. I left it like that so that you could stay there till you grew up. Um, did your mother make a will, do you know?’

‘I don’t know. Could you ring her lawyer and ask?’