‘It’s like a game?’

‘Exactly like a game but only you and me can know.’

‘Or we’ll all be split up and hungry.’

‘Yes. And it’s worth a tiny bit of being uncomfortable for the rest of our lives together as a family, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. We’ll make it happen tomorrow. You must promise to do exactly what I say and don’t tell anybody?’

‘I promise, Daddy.’

Be good and he won’t send you away.

If she needed to lie, she would.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Carly

One week ago

‘You’re lying!’ Carly couldn’t accept what she was hearing. She couldn’t accept she’d been betrayed by her mum as well as her dad. By her little sister. ‘You just want a new angle so we can sell our stories again. How could you make—’

‘I’m not making it up. Yeah, okay, I need the money, but I do think it’s time the truth came out. It’s been killing me keeping it to myself all these years.’

‘There’s no way—’

‘It’s true.’

‘True? You wouldn’t know the truth if it—’

‘It’s true,’ Marie said softly.

‘You didn’t think to warn us? When we were pissing in a corner and terrified… of course you wouldn’t have been terrified, would you? Always the fucking actress, weren’t you, Marie? Well, that must have been your biggest role. Bravo.’ Carly began to slowly clap.

‘Stop it! You don’t understand.’

‘No, I don’t understand. Have you got any idea what I’ve been through? How awful Mum made me feel all these years. She couldn’t wait to get rid of us. I thought it was because she couldn’t cope with what we’d been through but what she couldn’t cope with was the fact she’d known all along. She must have been terrified of being found out.’

‘She couldn’t help it, she loved him. She loves him. Still.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I know that she still visits him.’

Carly didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t understand why her mum would stand by her dad, even now. What would she do when he was released again? Take him back?

‘Do you know what this has done to me?’ Carly dropped her head in her hands.

‘Yes! I know what you went through. I was there.’

‘Not there. Since. I have felt responsible for what happened every single day. I was supposed to be the one in charge, watching you both. God… Leah? Does Leah know?’

‘No. I never told her, I swear. She’d never have coped.’

‘And now? You think she’ll cope now if this all comes out?’

This time a flicker of indecision crosses Marie’s face. ‘She’s stronger than we think.’

‘I don’t think she is. She’ll fall apart. Remember what happened last time she thought he was back? The Fregoli? The ways she was convinced he was everywhere she turned. She was nearly sectioned, for God’s sake, and yet you’re willing to sell her out for cold hard cash.’

‘But don’t you see? Once it’s all out there. The truth about the way I was persuaded by our dad—’