‘When Oliver finished things with Nadia, after he’d confessed to me about the pregnancy, she became obsessed with him,’ Rose said. ‘She persecuted him – both of us – she wouldn’t leave us alone. She said she was going to expose him to his university, finish his career.’ She turned to Tom. ‘Your father told her he would provide for the child, but that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted him. She became manic, obsessed, she wouldn’t be happy until she had Oliver to herself, until he left me and Emily for her.’

There was absolute silence, the three of them staring at her mutely. ‘I arranged to meet her,’ Rose continued. ‘I wanted to make her see sense. And if that didn’t work, I decided I’d offer her money, enough to leave the area, to start again somewhere else. I asked her to meet me somewhere we wouldn’t be seen. I used to walk the dogs along Widow’s Cliff, above Dunwich beach, you know. It seemed like as good a place as any, equidistant to where we both lived. It was usually deserted and I knew she’d make a scene.’

Rose hesitated, her eyes gazing unseeingly at the window as she remembered. ‘She was quite calm at first. But when I told her what I was offering, that I’d pay her to go away, that Oliver didn’t want her and never would, she went crazy. She had her daughter in her pram, and Emily was sleeping in her pushchair. She started ranting and raving, shouting that it wasn’t fair that Emily had her father but her daughter wouldn’t. And then … and then …’ Rose broke down, crying into her hands.

The three of them exchanged horrified glances. ‘What?’ Tom asked. ‘What happened to her?’

‘She jumped,’ Rose whispered. ‘Without any warning, she stepped off the edge and she jumped, leaving her poor baby alone up there with me! I ran to the edge and looked down, and her body was … oh God it was so awful, so horrible, her body was there, on the rocks below, before she got swept away.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Tom whispered.

‘We found out later that she had made suicide attempts before, had been diagnosed with bipolar long before she met your father. I didn’t know what to do,’ Rose cried, ‘I was in shock. I took the baby, took her from her pram, and put her in the pushchair with Emily, and then I ran. I thought people would say I pushed her, or that I made her jump, or I had driven her to it, that when it all came out about your father and her, it would look like I’d engineered the whole thing. I wasn’t thinking straight, I panicked, I just ran, I didn’t know what else to do!’