Her hands leave sweaty patches on her forehead after a few minutes.

I will not be parted from my child in this way.

That is what William’s latest email said to Frannie.

Of course. Frannie got pregnant three years ago in Verona. Cathy’s mind circles over it.

And then she thinks back, all the way back, to the beginning. The altercation with the stranger in the market. To the blood loss. To the warrant.

William wasn’t a stranger to Frannie. The market altercation wasn’t a random event, bad luck, a rare overreaction from Frannie. She knew him. He was Paul’s father. He’d been trying to get Frannie to give him contact for over a year. He wanted half and half, fifty per cent of Paul’s time to be spent in Verona. His emails became increasingly aggressive. What will it take for you to cooperate with me? he said. And then: I have to say, Francesca, I am disappointed by the tone of these emails. Children should see their fathers. And then: I am minded to use the full force of the Italian law over here.

That last email, dated two days before his death, suggested they meet, said he had a document for her to see. She refused. He must have shown her in the market, maybe, or later on.

Cathy stares at the screen until her eyes sting. So there never was a warrant. There was only ever a legal document naming a Joseph Plant. But Joe isn’t the only Joseph. Paul Joseph Plant, the Paul ripped off. It was some sort of residency order.

Cathy sinks her head back on to her hands and tries to work it through. No wonder Frannie panicked. But she also killed him.

She looks up, her eyes glassy, making the reception blur around her.

Her sister murdered the father of her child.

And it also means there is a paper trail, linking Frannie to Will.

Cathy sighs as she locks her front door behind her. She walks down her garden path and up Frannie’s. She’s waited until Frannie arrived home.

She lets herself in and steps forward, into the light of Frannie’s kitchen. Better now than later. It must be faced. ‘I know who Will McGovern was,’ she says.

There’s a silence as Frannie digests this. Cathy stares at her, becoming vaguely aware of something in her peripheral vision.

It’s Joe, in the darkness of the utility room.

‘Who is he?’ he says.

63.

Joe

Joe’s littlest sister is sitting at her table, looking up at him. He is so mad he could kill her.

Her jaw has jutted forwards in that way that it does before she cries angry tears. Her forearms lie parallel on their sides on the table, her wrists an inch thick at most. The truth comes from Frannie easily, like a river overflowing after months of rain.

Afterwards, Cathy is standing in her raincoat, holding her keys, her face like she’s just detonated a bomb.

‘And that’s the truth,’ Frannie says. Joe hears the bones of her arms thud against the wood of the table. ‘I’d told him about Paul. When he was born I thought it was the right thing to do. But then he began harassing me. He was going to get residency of Paul using the Italian courts. So I thought. I said we’d talk it out when I was over, but he wanted a lawyer’s meeting. It escalated so quickly. I told myself I’d just avoid him, in Verona. It’s a big place, that it would be stupid to miss a holiday because of him. But then there he was! At the fucking market, of course. He showed me the document at the market on his phone and then, when I wouldn’t engage, he rang, late, drunk, to say he was coming over.’