‘Wow.’ I sit forward, my eyes on the woman on the screen. I thought Switzerland was cows and chocolate and bankers, not this. ‘I’ve never heard of this before.’

‘I’m not surprised. The country is only recently talking about it properly. It’s been a… shameful secret, I guess.’

The woman in the report is now standing next to a man – her lawyer, I presume – who is reading a statement to camera. The thought of what she may have been through when she was a child, and how that may have affected her life ever since, makes me shiver.

‘The government apologised a few years ago. Now all the surviving victims will get compensation and I think there will be some study into why it happened,’ Michel says. ‘It’s about time.’

I don’t understand what the reporter is saying, but I can see how much it means to the woman on the screen, and the other people around her. A chill slithers down the back of my neck. I may have been through hell in the last few years, but my childhood was safe, secure and loving. How many of these children had that?

‘How many were there?’

Michel shrugs, shakes his head. ‘I don’t know exactly. Thousands, I think.’ His phone begins to ring and he fishes it out of his pocket. ‘Excuse me,’ he says to me with an apologetic smile. He gets up from his chair and walks into the kitchen area, phone to his ear. ‘Chérie, ça va?’ I hear, and that’s the extent of my understanding as he rattles off something in French.

A moment later he comes back to the sofa. ‘That was Julia. There are major delays on the trains and she can’t get back from the office so I’m going to drive to get her now. Are you okay to stay here?’

It’s late, and I’d almost forgotten Julia was meant to be here too, so infrequently do I see her. I don’t really want her to come back, to spoil the easy camaraderie that exists between Michel and I when she’s not here. But I shrug and smile my agreement. I’m not going anywhere. ‘Of course.’

He taps my arm in thanks, just lightly. ‘You’re a star,’ he says, and I beam back, warmth sliding into my cheeks. He grabs his keys from the kitchen work surface and I hear him walk down the corridor and shut the front door. Moments later the engine of his Mercedes fades up the road and all I’m left with is silence, and the dignified smile of the woman on the television.

JUNE 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland

SYLVIA