‘That’s got nothing to do with me. She’s just bored, looking for something to do.’

‘Fine. If you say so.’

Last night, after spending a couple of hours with Corinne working on the model, he had gone to bed, satisfied with the progress they had made on the apse of the cathedral – the narrow spindles of the flying buttresses and counter-supports. It was as he was getting undressed that Abi had looked up from her book and asked him: ‘Do you think she’s attractive?’

‘Who?’ he’d replied, his back to her as he sat on the bed and pulled off his socks.

‘You know who. Corinne.’ Her voice was light but the words were loaded.

‘She’s a child, Abi.’

‘So? You can still have an opinion, can’t you? You can be objective. The same way you can look at our daughters and say that Eva is without question attractive, whereas Beth …’

‘I don’t see them that way. And for God’s sake, don’t let Beth hear you say that. She’s insecure enough as it is.’

He’d pushed himself away from the bed and finished undressing in the bathroom, hoping that when he returned, she’d have let the matter go.

Still, it came back to him now, as he reached forward and closed his laptop, then swivelled his chair so he could face his daughter.

‘You’re not happy about Corinne staying with us?’

Eva frowned. ‘I just don’t get why you invited her back. I mean, she’s already had her stint here with us.’

‘The girl just lost her dad. Let’s try to be compassionate.’

‘So that’s why you asked her back? Out of compassion? Not because you’re feeling guilty?’

Mark said nothing but he wondered, not for the first time, how much of his conversations with Abi were overheard by their daughters. It was Mark who’d said, after the call from Valentina begging for their help, ‘How can we not? Every time I think of Guy in the car, clutching his head, I feel to blame. Like if I hadn’t hit that boar, if I’d been driving more carefully …’ Of course, the fact was that it was the man’s own actions that were responsible for his demise – the overeating, the drinking, Guy’s own recklessness at removing his seatbelt. But still, it kept him awake some nights, the gurgling sound in Guy’s throat coming back to him, amplified in the darkness.

‘And I don’t know how you managed to swing it with the school,’ Eva added. ‘Mum probably promised to refurb the computer lab or something.’