She looked at me for a moment, then looked away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You know I won’t tell anyone, don’t you? Not your dad, not Izzy or the others, not your teacher. No one.’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Maybe not. But I’ll try to.’

She leaned forward, her face hidden by her curtain of long blonde hair. There was a long pause. When she finally spoke, she wouldn’t look at me.

‘When you film something, people think it’s just a laugh,’ she said. ‘They think it’s just something to do in that minute, on that day. They don’t think about what happens to it after that, do they?’

‘And what does happen to it after that?’

‘Well, it’s out there, isn’t it? Forever. Out there on the internet, somewhere. Even after you die, it will still be out there, floating about somewhere. Something you did when you were a teenager, whatever stupid thing you did or said – forever and ever.’

I started to get an uncomfortable feeling deep in my stomach.

‘The internet never forgets,’ I said, remembering something a detective colleague was fond of saying.

‘Yeah. That’s what I mean.’

I hesitated, not sure how to phrase the next question.

‘Is there something out there, that you did? Something that you wished wasn’t out there?’

She stared out across the manicured lawn and the darkening vineyard beyond. When she looked back at me, there were tears in her eyes.

‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

‘Do you want to talk about it? A little bit?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Who says you can’t?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘I’ll do my best, love.’

She shook her head again. ‘I’ve told you. I can’t.’

‘I’m not going to force it out of you, Lucy. But it makes me feel so useless, the idea that I can’t help you. Dad and I have always done everything for you, but now it feels like there are things that are beyond our reach. And I hate not being able to be there for you.’

She stared out towards the hills, another tear running down her cheek.

‘You can’t help. No one can.’

I put my arm around her shoulders, my heart breaking over the gap that had grown between us. My wonderful girl, my firstborn, my smart, funny, sweet child, was drifting further away from me with each passing day. And it seemed as if there was nothing I could do to bring her back.

‘This – this thing that’s out there on the internet. Is it a video?’

She closed her eyes and nodded, once. A single, tiny movement.

A watery feeling of helpless anxiety began to spread outwards from my stomach.

‘A video with you in it? The sort of thing you – you wouldn’t want me to see?’

A pause. Then another tiny nod.