‘Why, so we can pretend it’s all normal? Mum, I just found out my best friend is my brother. Dad shagged Auntie Karen for years, and if he ever wakes up he might go to jail. Nothing is normal.’

She was right. As she swept away, making no noise in the thick socks she wore, I found that my hands were trembling holding the photos, and the shiny surfaces wobbled as a few tears dripped on to them. I looked down at an old picture of me and Bill – was it strange, the way we held each other so tightly back then, my head pressed against his chest? – then looked up to see the real one standing in the doorway, older, balder.

‘Is Cassie alright?’ he said.

‘I don’t know. I guess the kids at school know what’s happening.’ I could only imagine what Aaron’s snobby mother, Magda, would have to say about it. She already disapproved of Cassie for not being in the Oxbridge stream. ‘Any luck with that account?’ If I could find out where all our money had gone, maybe I’d be able to get it back.

‘No. It’s strange – the sort code doesn’t match any of the UK banks, or at least not that I can see. I’ll keep looking.’

‘Thanks.’ What the hell had Mike been up to?

Bill came into the room, bringing with him a waft of chorizo and soap. ‘Why do you have these out?’

I said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘Martha.’

He frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Karen said something. About how she’d – helped me out with it.’ Bill just looked at me, as he had all those years ago, and I felt the old familiar shame ooze through my veins, the excuses come to my tongue. Mike was my boyfriend. What else could I do? He just needed my help. ‘Please. I know what you think about it. I need to get it straight in my head. Can you help me remember what happened that night?’

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

‘You couldn’t find him,’ Bill said. We were in the kitchen, and his eyes were turned away from me as he stirred the pasta sauce. ‘It was a few hours into the ball and you couldn’t find Mike. I remember you were upset.’