‘So … tell me what’s up.’

He showed her the photograph Holgate had lent him, then. The photograph of five young protesters standing by the Redruth to Portreath road on Easter Saturday, 1977. He didn’t say anything. He just let her hold it and look at the black-and-white images of the younger versions of herself and her friends: of Caro and her holding the YOU ARE ENTERING A CHEMICAL WARFARE ZONE banner; of Martin Caldwell and Alison Parker forcing leaflets on passing motorists; and of Peter Ellery gazing across the road into the camera.

‘Christ,’ she said, taking a big swallow of wine. ‘This is memory lane stuff.’ She was trying to sound unfazed, trying desperately to pretend there was no lie staring back at her from the photograph.

‘Why did you and Caro switch fathers on me, April?’

‘We didn’t …’ The words died in her throat. ‘Where’d you get this, Nicky?’

‘Barry Holgate. Retired Western Morning News reporter. If it matters.’

‘Have you been down to Exeter?’

‘I have. To eighteen Barnfield Hill, as a matter of fact.’

‘You can’t believe anything Marty says. He’s …’

‘Missing, actually. Whereabouts unknown. I haven’t seen him. But Holgate told me most of what I needed to know.’

‘You can’t believe anything he says either. Holgate? I remember him. Typical journalist. Anything for a story. He didn’t like any of us. We weren’t his type. Well, not his readers’ type I—’

Nick grabbed the photograph out of her hand so forcefully some wine splashed out of her glass on to the floor. They looked at each other in silence for a moment. In her face Nick saw guilt and regret and something very like fear. ‘Could we just drop all that crap, please, April? It’s beside the point, isn’t it? I don’t know what’s going on with Martin. A lot, that’s for sure. But what I do know – what’s glaringly obvious – is that the guy in this photograph, the one who isn’t Martin, looks just like me when I was that age. I mean, it’s clear, isn’t it?’ He held the picture in front of her. ‘Well, isn’t it?’

She didn’t reply. He could hear her breathing, shallowly and rapidly. He was distressing her and he hated doing it on account of all the love she’d given him for as long as he could remember. But he didn’t hate it enough to stop. She didn’t owe him much. But she did owe him the truth about his father.

‘Peter Ellery was my father, not Geoff Nolan. You’re not going to deny that, are you?’

Her silence continued, growing heavier all the time. Eventually, she said, ‘I need to sit down.’