‘But Tommy didn’t want anyone to know. He was ashamed, you see. Ashamed that Nathan had to grow up the way he did. Tommy was young, and he was married to Marie then. And Nathan’s mother … well – she was a raving nutter. When Marie died, he wanted to contact the lad, but Nathan would have been a teenager by then, and Tommy thought it would have messed him up too much to have his long-lost dad suddenly turning up out of nowhere. Tommy tried to make up for it when Nathan was older. That’s why he gave him a job, and took him under his wing, like.’ She shook her head. ‘And why he let him get away with bloody murder.’

Grace took a sip of her tea to compose herself. If only she knew!

‘If I had only known that Tommy was Jake’s grandad,’ Grace said as she shook her head solemnly. ‘It would have been wonderful for Jake to have known him. And you too, Sharon. You would have been terrific grandparents.’ Grace stared at the older woman intently, hoping that her little act had been convincing enough.

‘Wait here,’ Sharon said suddenly, before disappearing out of the room. Grace could hear her moving things around upstairs and wondered what she was doing. Oh, please, let there be proof, she thought. Let me have something over that bastard for once.

A few minutes later, Sharon came back into the room carrying an old biscuit tin. Handing it to Grace, she wiped a tear from her eye. ‘I found these after Tommy died. He kept them all those years,’ she sniffed.

Grace opened the tin and took out the photographs. They were faded, with well-thumbed edges. She wondered how many times Tommy had looked at them. Smiling at his son – or crying at the childhood he was never a part of. She stared at the chubby face of Nathan as a baby. It could almost be Jake looking back at her. There were letters too. She took one out of the yellowed envelope, and opened the crisp, carefully folded paper. She read them all. Some were from Nathan’s mother, demanding money for her silence. Others from a foster home. From the dates and the contents, she realized they were from the foster home. The one where Nathan had learned to become the monster that he was.

Tommy had found out where Nathan was and had wanted to make contact. Nathan’s foster father – that animal – had dissuaded Tommy from contacting his son, telling him how happy and settled Nathan was there. What if Tommy had known the truth? How different would Nathan’s life have been? How different would Grace’s life have been?

‘Could I borrow these, Sharon?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I told you, this can’t come out. Nathan must never know. It would kill him.’