‘Last summer,’ she began, ‘Anouk went on holidays with some friends. She told my parents they were going to Italy, but really she went to Croatia to visit our grandparents. We had never met them, you see. Guy’s parents had died before I was born and Valentina had lost touch with hers. They had made it clear that the past was not somewhere that should interest us, but Anouk didn’t care. They didn’t find out until she came back.’

‘And what happened?’

‘As soon as she returned, I could see how changed she was – so serious, she hardly spoke to me any more, just walked around in a daze. She kept going into rooms with my parents and closing the door, all of them talking in hushed voices. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.’

There was a grave look on Corinne’s face and Beth realized that her friend was afraid.

‘You can’t ever tell anyone this,’ Corinne said now, her voice dropping so low it was almost a whisper. ‘Do you understand, Beth? Not anyone. Not ever.’

‘I won’t, I promise,’ Beth said solemnly.

Reassured by this, Corinne continued: ‘You know those stories your parents tell about how they met? How they fell in love and got married and all of that shit?’

‘Yes?’

‘My parents used to tell us how they met in a camp for refugees. In Angola during the civil war. Valentina and Guy were both volunteers, you know? Dreamers. Thinking they could change the world. It sounds romantic, no?’

Beth nodded, wary of the barely-holding-it-together air of Corinne’s account, something slightly manic in her delivery.

‘But it was all a lie.’

‘What?’

‘My parents may have met in Angola, but they were already related.’

Confusion swept over Beth. ‘What do you mean, related?’

Corinne’s eyes flickered, then she said: ‘Brother and sister.’

Beth experienced an instant drop in her stomach and at the same time a clamouring in her head. Corinne saw the way the information hit her, and nodded in recognition.

‘I know. It’s horrible, right?’

‘I don’t understand. How could they—?’

‘Their parents knew each other. They were friends. Part of a group of Croatians living in Paris after the war. They used to go to each other’s apartments, hang out in the same places, you know? My father was a small boy when Valentina’s parents moved away. They left Paris and moved to Nice. Valentina was born there. So, when Guy and Valentina finally met in that refugee camp in Angola, they didn’t know. Not at first. They had no idea that Guy’s father and Valentina’s mother …’

Her words drifted into silence, but the picture was already formed in Beth’s imagination.

‘When did they discover it?’