But he’s not in the sitting room or the study. I pause by my mother’s makeshift bedroom, a room that used to host noisy Sunday dinners before the long table was consigned to the garage. Now the only furniture is a single bed, a hard-backed chair, and a small free-standing cabinet covered in medication and a bowl of half-melted ice chips. Her breath is rattling like a penny in a charity box. I want to go to her, but I can’t bear the idea of disturbing her, so I hover by the door until the sound hurts my ears and my heart.

The only room downstairs I haven’t tried is the kitchen.

I push open the door. The surfaces are shining and clean, as if someone has scrubbed them. Maureen Connolly. It’s certainly not my father. I assume that same someone has rescued the fish pie from the bin because there’s a plate of it covered in clingfilm on the side and a note written in biro – BRINLEY, MICROWAVE FOR FIVE MINS – balanced on top of it.

The house feels too empty. My mother is here but she’s not here. No radio playing, no television or music. But I still think my father is upstairs – he can’t have left my mother alone – and any minute he’s going to appear from the shower or his bedroom, and hug me, like he used to when I was five and had skinned my knees.

But then I notice another scrap of paper on the kitchen table, held in place by an upside-down glass, and it’s another bruise to my heart.

GONE TO PUB FOR A PINT. BACK SOON. DAD X

37

The torchlight almost blinded her.

‘Up you get,’ said Mrs Carter.

Sara tried to stand, but her legs felt wobbly and there was a thickness in her head that clouded her ability to think of anything very much at all. Mrs Carter emptied a bottle of water in her face.

That shocked her into movement, and she forced herself upright, a painful feeling of fluid up her nose. The plunge into brightness after lying in the dark made her blink, lightning streaks flashing behind her eyes.

Mrs Carter caught her by the wrist and guided her out of the shed. The grass was wet against Sara’s bare feet, drizzle filling the air, her lungs, coating her skin in a fine layer of moisture.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Her mother’s mouth was close to her ear. ‘If you ever tell anyone about this, your father will lock you in the shed for a week without anything to eat or drink.’

Six. Seven. Eight.

‘He can’t help himself, you know. He wasn’t always like this. He had a—’

Nine. Ten.

‘—challenging childhood.’

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

‘He takes his duties as the head of our family very seriously.’

Fourteen. Fifteen.