“First of all, I don’t want to get close to people I can’t ever be myself with,” Mika reminded him. “The secrecy is kind of the key point. Even if I choose not to tell the truth, if I stay too long in one place, anyone who gets to know me might figure out I’m different. And second of all,” she went on, “Circe is only four years old. I’m not going to lose her for a good long while. As for the fish, they’re koi. They can live for over thirty years if they’re properly cared for. I’m not exactly risking my heart by letting them have a piece of it.”

“Look!” Rosetta interrupted them to goggle at the cars and lorries rumbling beside them on the wide, busy A47. “I’ve never seen so many cars in real life!”

Mika seized on this interruption. In the rear-view mirror, she could see that Ian had a look on his face that suggested he was not yet done with the subject of her romantic escapades, and she was determined to divert him. “Does Lillian have any family at all?” she asked, wondering if anyone else out there knew about the girls. “Have you ever met them?”

“Oh.” Ian shrugged, his eyes pointed out the window. “She told us once that she and her sister were raised by relatives who despised them. She left them as soon as she was able and never looked back, so no, we’ve never met any of them. Mind you,” he went on, “that’s her version of it, but as you might have noticed by now, Lillian is not exactly forthcoming.”

“I don’t think she’s ever outright lied to us,” Jamie objected.

“Withholding information is just as bad as a lie,” Ian replied petulantly. “And you needn’t give me that look, James. I know you feel like you have to defend her when I get going, but I’m not saying anything that isn’t true.”

Mika cast a doubtful sideways look at Jamie. “Why do you feel like you have to defend her?”

Jamie turned his head around so that he could scowl at Ian in the back, clearly irritated that he was now going to have to explain something he didn’t want to, and said, shortly, “I left home at sixteen. Lillian took me in.”

“So you lived at Nowhere House before you started working at the library? And you were still just a child when you left home?”