‘Julia was a carrier of Strep B, you see,’ said Patrick.

I knew this already but nodded, encouraging him to continue. Anya had explained that this common bacteria could, in some women, be passed to babies during delivery. She was going for a test soon, herself.

‘We didn’t know then, of course.’ He paused and stared down at the wine glass in his hand. He was gently twisting the stem, almost as though he was unaware of doing it. ‘Bloody unlucky, because most of the time babies survive the infection. But sadly, that wasn’t the case for Isabella.’

‘It must have been awful,’ I said quietly.

Anya had once said, a little guiltily, that she found it hard to connect with the idea of her dead, older sister. Patrick and Julia being who they were, it wasn’t something they brought up in passing, so this surprised me. But I could tell where it was heading.

‘And then, two years later, our Stasi was born.’

Most of the time, Patrick and Julia called Anya by her preferred name, but now and then they slipped into their childhood nickname for her. Patrick’s eyes shone and he cleared his throat, before taking a sip of his drink. Then he raised his eyes to meet my gaze and I was taken aback, a little, by the look in his eyes. They seemed to blaze at me with some sort of purpose.

‘The thing is,’ he said, leaning forward slightly, ‘that when she was born and I looked down at her in my arms, I vowed that I would never, ever let anything bad happen to her.’

I stared back at him. For the strangest moment, I wondered if this was a warning of some kind but then his face broke into its customary warm smile and he said, ‘I’m so excited that you two have this wonderful new life ahead of you!’

‘Um, yeah, me too,’ I said, and drained the last of my drink. It had gone too fast.

‘What I’m trying to say, Elliott,’ he said, serious again, ‘in my usual bull-in-a-china-shop way, is that I can’t apologize for my daughter not telling you some of the things you now know. That’s business between you and her. But maybe …’ he paused, frowning ‘… maybe she did it for the very best of reasons. Not because she didn’t trust you. But because she was scared that only Julia and I could still love her.’

That, finally, broke through and, a bit too loud, I exclaimed, ‘I’ll always love her!’

Patrick smiled, and it was an oddly sad smile.

‘I know that, Elliott,’ he said. ‘And she knows too.’

His phone pinged with a text message then and, glancing at it, he sighed.

‘Damn,’ he said, ‘seems I forgot to take my tablet.’

‘Does it matter if it is a bit late?’ I asked. He pulled a doomy face.