Grace accepted a biscuit and took the tiniest nibble, which hardly seemed worth the bother to Melissa. Then she took a sip of her tea and started to look a little bit better. Melissa was relieved. She didn’t want her illicit visitor keeling over on the lounge carpet. That would have been hard to explain to Ray.

‘I’ve got some photos, too,’ Grace said quietly, but she made no move to get them out.

‘Oh, aye,’ said Melissa encouragingly. ‘Let’s see them then.’

Slowly Grace took her purse from inside her bag and slid a few pictures out. She handed them over to Melissa one by one.

‘This is my son, Hector,’ she began.

Melissa looked at the picture. The boy was wearing a rugby kit and was clutching a muddy ball. Patches of dirt were smeared all over his cheeks, too, as if he’d been rolling around in it, but he was grinning like he’d just won the World Cup.

‘Nice lad,’ she said. ‘Likes his sport, does he?’

Grace nodded. ‘He’s captain of the school under-15s,’ she said. ‘And this is Clio.’ Grace handed over a photo of a girl on a brown and white pony, her long hair plaited and hanging down below her riding hat.

She was pretty, Melissa thought, in a namby-pamby kind of way. ‘She’s a bonny lass. Puts me in mind of our Leah,’ she said, even though she didn’t really. This girl had none of the spunk of Leah, none of that fire in her eyes. ‘They’re so cute at this age, aren’t they?’ she added. ‘Butter wouldn’t melt and all that.’

Grace nodded. She still had a picture in her hand, but she seemed reluctant to hand it over.

‘And who’s this?’ asked Melissa, taking the photo from Grace’s tight grip.

It was Grace and a man – Charles, Melissa assumed – all dressed up ready to go out, Grace in an elegant cream chiffon dress that grazed the floor and the man in a monkey suit. The picture must have been taken a while ago as Grace’s hair, still tied up at the nape of her neck, was a rich conker colour without the grey stripes that were there now. She looked fresh-faced and happy.

Melissa turned her attention to Charles’s image. So, this was the mysterious evil big brother. It was only a small picture, but from what she could tell he didn’t look all that evil. In fact, he appeared to be the very image of an English gentleman in his tux, a single red rose in his lapel.

‘God, but isn’t he the spit of Ray,’ Melissa said. ‘To look at this you’d think they were twins. I think my Ray’s a bit broader, maybe, and his hair’s different. Definitely brothers, though.’