‘What did Larry say?’

‘More evidence that my dad is a total fucking tool. Not that I should need it.’

‘Oh, babe.’

He glances at her, his beautiful wife, and suddenly he doesn’t want to tell her. He doesn’t want her to look at him and remember that he’s related to a man who is capable of something so sick. He doesn’t want to tarnish what they have, their innocent, uncomplicated life in their Victorian two-up-two-down with their dreams of babies and dogs. He thinks again of the photographs on Larry Knight’s wall, of the future he so desperately wants with Jen and their unborn children, and the spectre of his father threatening to blacken it all.

But he can’t keep this from her. He refuses to be the kind of man who hides things from his wife. He’s not his father.

He tells her everything.

Later, after they’ve hugged and demolished the chocolate and made promises to each other that they won’t let his father’s sins destroy their lives, Theo has an idea.

‘I think we should go to Wiltshire. Meet these people who own that cottage. My dad is interested in one of them for some reason. I need to know why.’

‘Are you sure?’ says Jen. ‘Maybe it’s best to keep the past buried.’

He swivels his leg out of bed so that he’s sitting on the edge with his back to her. ‘. . . I just can’t.’

He feels her hand on his shoulder. ‘Is this about your mum?’

Theo turns to look at her. ‘I keep wondering about the day she died.’

‘What about it?’

‘It was an accident. That’s what everyone said. But what if he did something to her?’

‘Like what? Pushed her?’

‘He pushed me down the stairs once.’

‘Oh, babe . . .’

‘I’m not telling you that for sympathy.’

Jen brushes her strawberry blonde hair away from her face. ‘I know you’re not. You said your dad was at work when it happened.’

‘I just can’t stop thinking that he could have pushed her and gone to work as though nothing had happened. You know how angry he gets. Maybe he hadn’t meant to do it. And then pretended to find her when he arrived home. She . . .’ His voice catches and he pauses, embarrassed. He hasn’t cried since his mum died. ‘She’d been dead for hours by the time he got home, the police said at the time. But if he’s capable of assaulting a woman when he’s supposed to be examining her, if he’s capable of pushing a child and hitting my mum . . .’ He thinks about Cynthia Parsons committing suicide. Larry told him she’d jumped from a multi-storey car park. There is no doubt about it: his father is responsible for her death even if he didn’t actually push her.