What she did in the house all day while his dad was at work he doesn’t know, but she never had a job. Once, when he was about sixteen, he came home from school early to find her crying at her dressing-table. Her eyes were all puffy and he was sure he saw an angry bruise on her shoulder that she hurriedly covered with a cardigan when he walked into her bedroom. When he asked if she was okay she’d said, in a rare moment of honesty, ‘I feel like a prisoner.’ And then she’d given him a watery smile and told him she was just being silly, that it was hormones and to ignore her. But it had left Theo with an uneasy feeling for days. He’d watched his parents more closely. They were so unlike how his friends’ parents were with each other. It’s just his way, sweetheart. Your father is a brilliant man. He works so hard. He just gets a little stressed sometimes. But he never saw his dad raise a hand to her. If he had he would have thumped him.

‘There is so much I wish I could ask you,’ he says now. ‘And I promise, if I’m ever lucky enough to be a dad I won’t be emotionally cut off, like him.’ He stands up and dusts off his jeans. ‘See you next week. Love you, Mum.’

Then he strolls off to find Jen, who is standing by a huge tombstone dating back two hundred years with about ten members of the same family inscribed on it. He comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. ‘All done,’ he says.

‘Shall we go and get a coffee now?’ she says, turning to him. She frowns. ‘What is it? You look . . . worried.’

‘I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. About Dad. About that article.’ He’d told Jen all about it after his shift that night.

‘Why don’t you just ask him about it?’

‘My dad isn’t like yours.’ His father-in-law is the polar opposite: warm, kind, fun, loving.

‘I know, but if you confront him about this he can’t wriggle out of it. Theo,’ she says softly, ‘you know I love you, but where your dad is concerned, you . . . I don’t know . . . pussyfoot around him.’

He laughs. ‘Pussyfoot!’

‘Yes, pussyfoot. It’s like you’re scared of him.’

‘You’ve met my father!’