Marnie held up a hand in apology and approached her father’s door, conscious that she was being watched from all sides. She knocked briskly. When there was no sign of her father having heard, she moved across and banged her fist on the living-room window. After a moment, the curtain moved back and her father’s face appeared so close to Marnie’s on the other side of the glass that she stepped back in alarm and almost fell. John’s face was blurred by condensation as he exhaled. The curtain dropped back, and a moment later the door opened, a blast of guitar music accompanying a fug of tobacco smoke. John’s little Jack Russell, Trip Two – ‘TT’ for short – wagged around Marnie’s ankles, yapping enthusiastically.

John was stooped, dishevelled, the button on his trousers undone to accommodate his swollen belly, his jumper on back to front and inside out, his face wrinkled and sallow beneath a tangle of hair, still raven black. ‘Come in,’ he said, wafting the cigarette between his fingers, the action described by a lingering swirl of smoke. Marnie could feel his loneliness like a drop in temperature. His face was ravaged, his eyes wet and swollen. She couldn’t tell if he’d been crying or if it was the drink, or a combination of both. She had only seen him this distressed once before and that was after her mother’s funeral, when he’d given in to his grief. The broad-shouldered hero of a man Marnie remembered from her childhood, the man her mother used to tell her was the handsomest man on the planet, was gone.

‘What are you doing here?’ John asked gruffly. ‘It’s not Friday, is it?’ He looked her up and down, checking to see if she had a bag containing the traditional Friday fish supper.

Marnie turned sideways and stepped past her father into the bungalow. She shut the door behind her, so she could no longer feel the eyes of the neighbours upon her, put her hands over her ears and scowled.

Ungraciously, John went into the living room and reduced the volume of the record player. He didn’t make way for Marnie. Instead they stood almost nose to nose in the claustrophobic hallway and neither was capable of saying any of the things that needed to be said. Marnie went into the kitchen, small and beige, kitted out for one elderly person. Dishes were piled in the sink. She filled the kettle, fighting the urge to tidy because she knew her father would take it as a criticism and become angry.

‘If you’ve come because of what they found at the holiday park you didn’t need to,’ said John. ‘Edward deVillars already told me. He brought a bottle of Scotch. He said: “John, old chap, I’m afraid I have some rather bad news…”’