I don’t want to go into every terrible thing that he did. It is far too painful. But what I will say is that we felt it necessary to take him to see a psychiatrist. Of course, we told no one that he was our child, just that he was my young cousin. We had never done anything through official channels, and there would have been too many questions asked. But even at the age of nine, he was worryingly manipulative, saying all the right things, and the baffled doctor told us he could find nothing obviously wrong with him. He lived with us for almost two years, until Auntie Ivy was well enough to take him back. She was quite insistent that he return to her. I could only assume he was a different child when not under our roof. It was quite bizarre.

By this time, our lives had been irreversibly damaged. We had no further contact with Joseph, and although we tried to put the experience behind us, Frank was never the same again. He was filled with hatred for our son, whose actions had cast a shadow over our whole existence. I think it was only Frank’s strong faith that had stopped him from beating the boy within an inch of his life before he finally went back to my aunt in Dorset.

Stina, I am so sorry that I didn’t tell you about Joseph. Selfishly, I suppose I thought it reflected badly on me – on us. Out of the blue, he reappeared recently and it has brought everything to the fore again. He has been visiting me regularly as he has found a job in the quarry, where Frank once worked. I know you, and probably others, have seen him. I expect you will think it odd, but to explain who he was would have opened a whole can of worms that I really didn’t want to reveal.