Now my father glanced towards the nurses’ station and then at the young man in the other bed and still he could not bring himself to tell me the truth.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do. Because we both know that you didn’t kill James Caine. I bet you don’t even know where that hotel is, do you? Where he died. Where he was killed. The Langham! I don’t believe you went around there with Maple’s nailing hammer. I don’t think you’ve ever been there. Is that honest enough for you, Daddy?’

‘It’s in Portland Place,’ he said without hesitation. ‘About halfway between the Chinese Embassy and Oxford Circus. Right across the street from the BBC. I used to go there all the time, Tara. You can ask your friend. Ask Ginger.’

And I realised that the Langham was where my father must have taken his women. I abruptly let go of his hands.

He stared at them resting on the paperback as if he deserved nothing less. Then I could not stop myself. The grief rose up in me and choked my throat and filled my eyes.

‘But I don’t want you to die!’ I said, and it was as stark and simple and heartbreaking as that, and I wept for him, and for myself, and for Marlon, and for the child who had not been born.

‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘You have your time and then your time is done. And that’s true for all of us. You just don’t realise it for the first, oh, sixty years or so.’

‘But not now!’ I said.

I could hear my teenage self, raging against all the injustice in the world. It’s not fair! I hate you! Slamming out of the house in Bushey as I ran to whatever older boy was waiting for me on the pavement with his engine running. But there was nowhere to run to today.

‘It’s not your time yet, Dad,’ I said. ‘It’s just not.’

‘Don’t be sad, angel face,’ he said. ‘You have to focus on what really matters.’

I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and I waited for him to tell me what really mattered and when he spoke, his voice was as soft as a prayer.

‘You’re safe,’ my father said. ‘Nobody can hurt you now.’

37

Tara

My business was struggling. Subscriptions were falling, advertising had fled, I had had to let Phil the driver go. He did not take it well. People always assumed that their job was going to last a lifetime, even though no job does. The younger you are, the better you understand that cruel fact of the working world. Michael had taken a 50 per cent pay cut while Skyla was thankfully still doing it for the experience. Christian and I had remortgaged the house and that was OK because we had been poor before, we had struggled before. But this time it was different. Things seemed to be coming to an end.