RACHEL

‘But…’ The past twenty years were speeding through my memory, garbled, like a tape on rewind. ‘But no, her parents are in Bolton. She always went to stay with them.’ I looked at Amber, elegant and poised in a black cashmere turtleneck. Her sophistication was a million miles from Esther’s chaotic Northern sexiness, all chipped red nails and boobs on display. And could Amber be old enough to have given birth to her, even allowing for Arthur’s sneering aside about her real age? ‘She’s not… you’re not…’

Amber’s eyes narrowed. ‘Exactly,’ she said, icily calm. ‘You would never know that my own child is mine. My life – and her life – were stolen from us.’

‘I don’t understand…’

Amber leant towards me across the coffee table, and I instinctively drew back. ‘I had her very, very young,’ she said. ‘I came down here for Drama College, got involved with one of my tutors.’ She silently shook her head at the memory. ‘Oldest story in the book. He didn’t want to leave his wife, I didn’t want to…’ She paused a second. ‘Our family are Catholic; I would never have got rid of her.’

Shock had frozen me now. I just needed to hear the truth; I could allow myself to feel the feelings later. ‘Of course,’ I said, and let her carry on.

‘So, I had her, but my mum said I couldn’t possibly look after her. I was only seventeen. They’d bring her up instead.’ Her face was set, the blazing rage of earlier drained away, replaced by something far more chilling. ‘She was the first one to take my child from me.’

‘That must’ve been agony,’ I said. I couldn’t think about the whole picture yet, the torture she’d devised for us. I had to wait for her to lay out the whole sorry map.

Amber gave a terse nod. ‘It was like I was in the way, whenever I went back home. She didn’t know I was her mum; I was just some interloper she had to give up her bed for.’ Her blue eyes flashed with that potent, controlled fury. It was so unnerving, the way Esther’s face seemed to layer over hers as she talked about her now that I knew the truth. ‘I just had to stay away. I wasn’t wanted.’

My anger – my fear at where we were headed – got the better of me for a second. ‘So it sounds like it was your parents who stole her away from you?’ I said.

Amber looked at me with pure contempt. ‘Unlike your parents, with all of their money and their status, they didn’t have many choices. They did what they thought was right to protect us.’

The room hummed with silence. She knew exactly how to take the power back, even now.