Donna swings the conversation back to the day the woman was killed. The day Tom lied about his whereabouts. I tell her he’d gone to the house because I’d been shown a photo of him with Kenny. He went to confront the mother and she said she knew nothing about it. I sound like I understand and accept Tom’s actions. Which isn’t the case. Why he couldn’t just admit Kenny’s existence to me at the time is still bothering me. Did he think that he was going to be able to keep this from me forever?

‘Who told Kenny that Tom was his father?’ Donna says out of the blue. The question shocks me for a moment. I try to think.

‘I guess the mother. I don’t actually know.’

‘But why now?’

‘What do you mean, why now?’

‘Why did she wait until now to tell him?’

‘I don’t know – guilt maybe, his age, I haven’t a clue.’

‘Does Tom know why?’

‘I didn’t ask him.’

Donna pulls the paper from my side of the island and flicks it around to look at the photo again. ‘I don’t like her hair,’ she says, trying to defuse the atmosphere she’s created with her question. ‘Maybe when they find her you could give her a cut.’

I’m not in the humour of laughing but I chuckle anyway, then leave.

‘What happened when you went to see the woman?’ Tom is leaning against the counter top with a cup of coffee in his hand when I get home. White face, grey tossed hair and tracksuit bottoms tell me he’s not having a good day, either.

‘I told you, Sal, I went to ask her if she knew anything about the photograph that you were shown in the salon.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She said no. That she never even wanted me to know Kenny was my kid. Never mind you.’

‘If she didn’t tell him – which we have to presume she didn’t if she never wanted you to know about him – who did?’

Tom moves his eyes from me and stares into the space in front of him. Reality never settles that easily on the man. He has to give it time to register in his brain.

‘I think you should ask Kenny, Tom.’

He’s still staring into space when I suggest he takes Kenny for a coffee or burger or whatever sixteen-year-old boys like. Bring it into the conversation, see what he says. If Tom is right and Kenny’s mother did not want the boy to know about Tom, then who told him?

That evening, Ellen arrives to the house like I’ve just given birth to a new baby boy. There’s a card in her hand, ‘Kenny’ written on the envelope. I presume it’s cradling some money.