“Not really. It was my carelessness that got us both into this mess in the first place. I’m simply seeing to my responsibilities. Leonie, I mean, though she’s more than just a responsibility.”

“Yes, but with Constance. I don’t know anyone who would do what you’ve done.”

“That’s just it. You don’t know the half of it. There are things I’ve done that I knew were wrong at the time. I thought I was helping her, I really did, that it was worth the sacrifice. And now it’s too late to go back.”

“What things?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you. I don’t want you to think I’m a bad person.”

She moved closer. “I’d never think that.”

After a long pause, he began. “I helped her hide the pregnancy. And the birth. When it came to the labor, we did it on our own.”

“Do you mean, you delivered Leonie? Without help? No midwife or anything?”

He nodded, his forehead crumpling.

“But anything could have happened.”

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? She was in so much pain, I begged her to let me call an ambulance. But then, it all happened so fast, and afterward they both seemed to be fine. So I just went along with it.”

“My god, Gregor.” She couldn’t get her head around it. “What did you do with the umbilical cord? With the afterbirth?”

He shuddered, looked like he might throw up.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Can we not?”

Gregor’s head dropped into his hands. Ruby heard a soft sob. She went to him, put her arm around him as he cried.

“I loved her once, you know. I still do, as the mother of my child. But when someone’s ill, and you become a carer, it can kill it dead, even if you don’t want it to. That sounds awful, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Ruby. “It’s understandable. And nobody’s fault.” She thought she understood now why he wanted Ruby to keep Constance and Leonie a secret: the birth was the first lie, and to cover it up he’d had to keep lying. It was illegal not to register a birth. Every day they went without declaring it would complicate things further, make explaining their actions ever more difficult. Could he go to prison? Could Constance? Perhaps that was what he was really scared of, not the mental illness.

“It is my fault, though. I failed them both when I ended it between us. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t intend on having a baby. Leonie deserves two parents.”