‘What are you doing?’ Cassie was haunting the doorway. I noticed how pale she was, the line of her collarbone jutting over the collar of her pyjamas. In the folds of flannel, she looked like the child she still was. I felt guilt roil in my stomach. In my head, the interminable to-do list was out of control. Find some money. Get Mike’s case thrown out. Visit him in hospital. Look after Benji, get him fed and to school. And Martha – I didn’t even know why it felt important to look at these pictures. Maybe because of Karen’s veiled words – I did it for you – the fear they’d sent prickling up my neck. The need to get ahead of whatever she was planning. With all these things to do, Cassie, who’d always been so independent, had slipped to the bottom. I was sure she hadn’t told me the truth about that night, but I couldn’t think how to get it out of her.

‘I’m just – looking at old photos.’

‘Why?’ I could hear the frustration in her voice. ‘Mum, dwelling on it won’t help. I know you think you all had this amazing time in Oxford, all like, I don’t know, that stupid TV show about the posh people, but I bet it wasn’t as good as you remember. People change, you know? You don’t always remember things right.’

I was floored for a moment – how could she know this, when she wasn’t even sixteen? ‘I know. I’m just . . .’ Looking for a sign your dad had nothing to do with a girl’s murder. ‘I’m just sad, is all. That this happened.’

‘I bet Karen’s sadder.’ Her voice was so cold. She’d turned entirely against her father in such a short space of time, when they’d always been so close.

‘Cassie, it’s not as simple as that.’

‘How is it not? Dad lied, for years and years. She says he did it. Why do you believe him, not her?’

‘Did you want me for something?’ I heard the snap in my voice, the tone that so often came out when Cassie pushed my buttons. The way my own mother had so often spoken to me.

She twisted her hands together. I couldn’t read her face; hadn’t been able to for years now. ‘No. When’s dinner?’

‘I don’t know, I think Bill’s making something.’ I felt ashamed saying that. I’d let him take over, cushion the sharp edges of domesticity, which he was so good at.

‘I’m not really hungry anyway.’ Anxiety. She was too thin.

‘Cass, you have to eat. We have to carry on. And you have to go to school tomorrow, OK? You need to face it sometime.’