‘Where did the pair of you really get him from?’

Terry was staring at her face. ‘What?’

‘Harlan. Once I tried to contact the woman who brought him here from the adoption agency all those years ago. I couldn’t. It all stank, you know? No one in the office knew of her. People who’d been there, like forever. Nobody had ever heard of a Mrs Bushell.’

‘Nula . . .’ Terry half-turned away, eyes downcast.

Nula grabbed hold of his arm. ‘Look,’ she said fiercely, her eyes blazing into his. ‘All this has nearly driven me bollock-mad crazy. You know it has. Don’t you think I deserve the truth now? After all I’ve been through?’

Terry was visibly wavering. ‘Look . . .’ he started, then stopped.

‘What?’ Nula’s heart was pounding in her chest. Was she finally – at last – going to hear the truth from someone about that cuckoo that Charlie had thrust into their nest?

Terry’s eyes met hers. ‘I do think you’ve had a raw deal. I agree with you on that. But if any of this ever gets back to Charlie, I’ll deny it and I’ll say you’re mad too.’

Nula was nodding. ‘All right. OK. Whatever you tell me, it’ll stay between us. I promise you that.’

‘She was a junkie,’ said Terry.

‘What?’

‘Harlan’s mum. We were in town, Charlie and me, and we went into this squat, and there she was, dead on the kitchen floor.’

He paused, hands in pockets, frowning heavily.

‘Go on, for God’s sake,’ said Nula breathlessly. She couldn’t believe it and yet she did. All these years, and here it was, confirmed. Charlie had lied to her. And Terry had colluded with him over it.

‘We found the kid in a cupboard under the stairs, hiding away. God knows what he’d had to live with, what he’d seen and been through, with that skank for a mother.’

‘Oh Christ.’ Nula had to lean against the buggy; she felt dizzy all of a sudden. Shocked to her core.

‘But Charlie straight away saw it as an opportunity. Well, you know Charlie.’

Nula was silent. Apparently, she didn’t know Charlie at all. Her husband of nearly twenty years had deceived her in more ways than one. He’d not only fucked Terry’s missus behind her back – raped her, for God’s sake – he’d also foisted some dirty tramp’s bastard onto her. When she had thought she was getting a normal child.