And then his heart falls. The cupboard is empty. All that effort and his dad has locked a fucking empty cupboard. He looks around as though this is some prank and his dad is at the door laughing at him. But no, he’s alone. Why would his dad lock an empty cupboard? Unless, he thinks, gathering his thoughts, his dad has moved whatever was in there to somewhere more secure. He peers into the cupboard, gently pushing on the shelves within. The bottom one creaks under his hand. He inspects it more closely: it’s loose, more like a panel than a shelf. He pushes it and the top comes off, revealing a sort of hidden section underneath. Theo’s heart pounds. Something’s there: a small pile of newspaper cuttings with a black A4 flexible folder placed on top. He reaches for the cuttings. They are all dated from 2004 and are from local newspapers about his mum’s accident. He understands why his dad might want to keep them, but why hide them? Perhaps he just forgot about them, he thinks, putting them back.

Then he turns to the folder. It has clear plastic sleeves. He flicks through it. Each of the fifteen-odd sleeves has a photograph loose at the bottom. Nothing more than that. He takes out the first. It’s in colour, muted autumnal tones, and is of a woman around his age, and it looks like she’s unaware the photo has been taken. She’s heavily pregnant. By the style of her hair and clothes it looks to be from the late 1960s or early 1970s. He turns the photograph over, expecting maybe a date or a name, but it’s blank. He flicks through the rest of the folder and it’s the same: photographs of women, taken unawares. But nothing else. The latest photo looks more recent. Maybe ten years ago, fifteen at a push. Definitely the twenty-first century. Why has his dad got a folder of these random women?

An appalling thought suddenly hits Theo. Perhaps his dad molested them and has now become obsessed with them. Stalking them? A myriad different hideous scenarios flits through his mind, like a storyboard for a horror film, and he snaps the folder shut. No, he reasons. That can’t be it. If his dad was a serial sex offender wouldn’t at least some of these women have come forward and made a complaint? As far as he’s aware nobody has, apart from Cynthia Parsons. He wonders if one of the women was her. He opens the folder again and goes back to the first photo. If only he had some other names to go by. He reaches for his phone in his back pocket and, he’s not sure why, but he takes snaps of the first five photos.