‘Of course he’s troubled! Christ, he’s my – what, he’s my brother, and I grew up here and he lives in that shithole with no money, and all his life he thinks his dad just didn’t want to know him. Of course he’s messed up! And it’s all Dad’s fault.’

‘He didn’t know,’ I said weakly.

‘What, like he didn’t know he was raping her?’

I didn’t know who she was, this angry, whip-smart girl in front of me, with chipped nail polish and freckles on tanned skin. I couldn’t recognise her as my flesh, though I knew I’d given birth to her. Could I blame Mike for not seeing what was under his nose all this time?

‘Cass, I know you’re upset. Everyone’s upset. What we have to do now is help Daddy.’

‘How?’

I took a deep breath. ‘What Karen said – that it’s been going on for a long time, for years – it could help Daddy’s case. Show that maybe it wasn’t – what she says it was. So if you did realise that you remembered something about that night—’

She stared at me for a long time. My own eyes looking back at me, accusing. ‘You’re crazy. You want me to lie?’

‘No! I just need to know what you saw. What you were doing that night.’ I took a deep breath, steeled myself for her anger. ‘Was someone else there, in the woods? Were you meeting Aaron?’ I’d always tried to give Cassie her privacy, remembering how it was when I was that age. I heard you were down the town with a boy. I won’t have my daughter acting like a slut. The slaps that would follow if I talked back, explained it was just a schoolmate, or someone I’d spoken to only once. But I had to make her tell me what she’d been doing.

Cassie was quiet for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly calm. ‘Mum, I told you. I didn’t see anything. No one got into the garden. I was just . . . I couldn’t sleep.’

‘You didn’t see Dad, or Karen, or . . .’

‘I didn’t see anything! I can’t lie, if that’s what you’re saying.’

‘Darling, no, not lie, it’s just that we do need to show that it isn’t true, that she’s making it up, and . . .’

‘Mum. Don’t you realise? I hate Dad. I hope he goes to prison. If I were Jake I’d have tried to stab him too. So how dare you ask me. How dare you.’