‘Do you really know your dad?’ Her eyes are huge. ‘Or your mum? Like, really know? Do you ever think they might be this person with all this stuff in their life they’ve been hiding from you?’

I’m silent. There’s so much my parents don’t say. I try not to think about it.

‘If I tell you …’ Hollie’s bottom lip wobbles as she goes on. ‘You have to swear, Niamh. On your life. You can’t tell anyone. Not ever.’

I stare at her. Is she actually going to tell me? ‘I swear.’

Hollie’s eyes dart around, and then she blurts out. ‘I’ve found out something about my dad.’

I take a swig of Coke. ‘What about him?’

I wait for her to tell me, but then she changes her mind. ‘I can’t.’ She puts down her can.

‘But you’ve started. And it can’t be that bad …’ It’s so annoying when she does this.

She gazes at me for a moment and I look for the answer in the depths of her wide brown eyes. The horror, sadness, sense of betrayal she feels are all there, clear as day, but she breaks our connection as she jumps up.

‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Hollie, it’s raining. And there isn’t anywhere to go.’

‘I know somewhere,’ she says as she pulls on her jacket and does up her boots.

There’s nowhere around here – just scattered big houses behind garden walls and a village church – but under her spell, I pull on my boots and follow her.

There’s a rawness in the air as we step outside. Hollie’s introspective mood is replaced by recklessness as she runs across the garden into the lane.

‘Wait …’ Zipping up my jacket, I run after her. ‘Where are we going?’

She doesn’t answer me, instead hissing, ‘Oh my God … Ida Jones has seen us. Run!’

As I glance at Ida’s window, I see that she seems to be beckoning me. Pausing, I’m momentarily torn between finding out what she wants and following Hollie’s retreating figure. Deciding to follow my friend, I break into a run.

Catching up to her, we turn up Furze Lane side by side, moving past the row of terraced flint cottages with their small, dimly lit windows, and coils of wood smoke coming from the chimneys. Further on, beneath tall trees on either side, the lane narrows before there’s a left-hand bend, looping it back towards the village. Most of the lanes in our village are single tracks off which large houses are set back, hidden behind walls and hedges, their gardens mostly obscured from one another.