“Has he been here?” puts in Suze.

“Has he made contact?”

“Can you tell us what this is all about?”

Raymond’s face has closed up as we’ve been talking. He meets my eye briefly, then glances away, and I feel a twinge in my stomach. He knows.

“What is it?” I demand. “What happened?”

“What’s he doing?” chimes in Suze.

There’s another flicker in Raymond’s eye, and he stares at the far corner of the room.

“You know, don’t you?” I try to catch his eye. “Why won’t you speak? Why did you turn my mum away?”

“Tell us!” exclaims Suze.

“Whatever he’s doing, that’s his business,” says Raymond, without moving his gaze.

He knows. We’ve come all this way and he knows and he’s not telling us. I feel such a surge of fury, I start quivering.

“I’ll throw this to the ground!” I yell, brandishing Twice. “I’ll throw everything to the ground! I can do a lot of damage in thirty seconds! And I don’t care if you call the police, because this is my dad and I need to know!”

“Jesus!” Raymond seems shocked at my outburst. “Chill out. You really Graham’s daughter?” He turns to Suze. “Graham was always Mr. Calm.”

“He still is,” says Suze.

“I take a bit more after my mum,” I admit.

“So…you’re Graham’s daughter,” he says for a third time. God, is he always this slow on the uptake?

“Yes, I’m Rebecca,” I say pointedly. “But my dad didn’t want to give me that name. For some reason. Which no one will tell me.”

“And Brent’s and Corey’s daughters are Rebecca too,” puts in Suze.

“Brent’s daughter said, ‘We’re all called Rebecca,’ but I don’t know why, and, basically, I’m tired of not knowing about my own life.” My voice is shaking as I finish, and a weird little silence falls over the room.

Raymond seems to be processing everything. He looks at me and at Suze. He looks at the pots, still above our heads. (Suze must have such bad pins and needles by now.)

Then, at last, he seems to give in. “OK,” he says.

“OK what?” I say warily.

“I’ll tell you what your dad’s doing.”

“So you do know?”

“He was here.” He gestures to a paint-stained sofa. “Sit. I’ll tell you what I know. You want some iced tea?”

—

Even though Raymond seems to have decided to play along, we don’t relinquish the pottery, just in case. We sit on the sofa, clutching the two sculptures on our laps, while Raymond pours iced tea from a jug, then arranges himself on a chair opposite.

“Well, it comes down to the money,” he says, as though this is perfectly obvious, and takes a thoughtful sip from his glass.

“What money?”

“Brent signing away his rights. I mean, that’s years ago now. But your dad only just found out, thought it was wrong. Wanted to do something about it. I said, ‘That’s their business.’ But your dad got the bit between his teeth. He and Corey always did have that…I don’t know what you’d call it. A spark. Corey wound your dad up. Anyway, so that’s what he’s up to.”