‘Yeah, I know. But it’s different when it’s you who’s been attacked. It doesn’t seem nearly so black and white then … I don’t know, maybe he was going through a bad time – he was certainly working way too hard. Maybe he just lost it …’

‘Nothing excuses what he did, Gracie. Nothing.’

Suddenly her eyes were pleading. ‘You won’t tell Sam? Please, Finch, he can’t know. I wouldn’t have told you if it wasn’t for Romy.’

Romy … ‘Of course I won’t,’ he assured her.

His mind, as soon as he was alone and Grace had gone back to her bedroom, began racing, unwelcome images flashing across his brain. He wondered what he should do with what he’d been told, how best he could help his stepdaughter. She had entrusted him with her biggest secret, her very soul, but just knowing it, Finch felt as if he’d been left balancing on a tightrope across a pitch-black chasm.

Suddenly the suspicion that had plagued him as soon as Grace made her revelation – a suspicion he was trying so desperately to evade – returned to smack him full in the face. Did Romy know? Is that why she left Michael? Has she been covering up for the man all these years?

29

Romy stood at the door of Michael’s bedroom early on Saturday morning. She was itching to get back to Sussex. And intrigued to meet Grace.

His eyes flicked momentarily from the television screen, then back to what he was watching, a twitch around his mouth his only welcome. The room was in curtained darkness, although she had heard the noise of the TV through the wall since dawn. She glanced at the screen. A man lay flat on his back outside what looked like a small but elaborate mausoleum, a dark pool of blood spreading across the marble under his head. As she watched, the shot panned out, music swelled and the screen faded to black.

‘Did he deserve it?’ Romy asked, as Michael finally tore his gaze away from the television, a smile on his face.

‘Oh, definitely. He’d had a child killed, so he had to go. A thoroughgoing bastard.’ He sounded so satisfied that Romy smiled as she watched him pull himself awkwardly up in bed and glance at the bedside clock. ‘You’re early.’

‘I’m off in a minute.’

There was silence as Romy saw Michael’s expression fall. But since his outburst at the beginning of the week, he had not mentioned Finch, or his feelings for Romy, for which she was grateful. But she sensed them nonetheless, simmering hot beneath the surface, whenever she caught him looking at her.

‘You’re leaving me with Daniel, then?’ Michael asked. ‘Aren’t you worried he’ll neglect me? Starve me? Or, worse, make me eat that disgusting muesli mix he seems to dote on?’

Romy laughed. ‘Probably be very good for you.’