‘Sweetheart …’ He put his arm around her shoulders and brought her close. She was cold and shaking. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ He thought it must be something to do with Nell. Grace had always found it hard coming home since her mother had died. She’d said so, many a time. ‘Are you missing your mum?’ he asked.

But Grace shook her head vehemently. ‘No, well, yes, I always miss her. But this …’ She stopped.

‘Tell me,’ he said gently.

She began to cry again and he waited, just holding her until the tears had subsided. ‘I’ve never told anyone,’ she began, ‘not in all these years. I didn’t think I ever would.’ She pulled away and blew her nose, clasping her hands tight together between her knees. ‘But when you mentioned Michael Claire …’

‘You know him?’ Finch asked, his guts churning with an unnamed fear.

She nodded. ‘I did work experience in his chambers when I was sixteen. For a week. James Bregman – the barrister Michael shares chambers with – was a friend of Mum’s.’ Grace was talking quickly now, and she barely paused before more words came tumbling out, her voice suddenly forceful and determined. ‘You won’t want to hear this, Finch, but Michael Claire assaulted me one night, when everyone else had gone home. He gave me wine and he assaulted me.’

Finch gasped, trying to take in what Grace was saying.

His stepdaughter’s eyes were defiant. ‘He sat next to me on this chaise-longue thing in his office and stuck his tongue down my throat and tore my dress, pinned me down, bruised my breasts and my thighs … It was brutal.’

‘He raped you?’ he croaked, the word stinging his tongue.

‘No.’ Grace’s voice wobbled. ‘But he might have, if the phone hadn’t rung and I’d managed to push him off and escape.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Finch was horrified, stunned. Romy’s husband? It made his blood run cold. ‘What happened afterwards? Where did you go?’ He was trying to get his head around what his stepdaughter was saying.

‘I was staying with a school friend in town that week.’

‘And your mum?’

‘Mum was here. I didn’t see her till the weekend.’

‘But you told her?’

She bowed her head, looking defeated. ‘No.’

Puzzled, Finch asked, ‘Why ever not?’