She lay still. Her heart thudded. How could this be? It was absurd. Impossible. Were they actually lying in bed talking about John-Paul going to jail?

‘I really wanted to be the one to teach the girls how to drive,’ he said. His voice broke. ‘They’ve got to know how to handle wet roads. You don’t know how to brake properly when the roads are wet.’

‘I do so,’ protested Cecilia.

She turned around to face him and saw that he was sobbing, his cheeks crumpled into ugly grizzled folds. He twisted his head to bury his face in the pillow, as if to hide his tears. ‘I know I have no right. No right to cry. I just can’t imagine not seeing them each morning.’

Rachel Crowley never gets to see her daughter again.

But she couldn’t harden her heart enough. The part of him she loved best was the part that loved his daughters. Their children had bound them together in a way she knew didn’t always happen to other couples. Sharing stories about the girls – laughing about them, wondering about their futures – was one of the greatest pleasures of her marriage. She’d married John-Paul because of the father she knew he would be.

‘What will they think of me?’ He pressed his hands to his face. ‘They’ll hate me.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Cecilia. This was unbearable. ‘It will be all right. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to change.’

‘But I don’t know, now I’ve actually said it out loud, now that you know, after all these years, it feels so real, more real than ever before. It’s today, you know.’ He ran the back of his hand across his nose and looked at her. ‘Today is the day. I remember every year. I hate autumn. But this year it seems even more shocking than ever. I can’t believe it was me. I can’t believe I did that to someone’s daughter. And now my girls, my girls . . . my girls have to pay.’

The remorse racked his whole body, like the worst sort of pain. Her every instinct was to ease it, to rescue him, to somehow make the pain stop. She gathered him to her like a child and whispered soothing words. ‘Shhhh. It’s all right. Everything is going to be all right. There couldn’t possibly be new evidence after all these years. Rachel must be mistaken. Come on now. Deep breaths.’

He buried his face in her shoulder and she felt his tears soaking through her nightie.

‘Everything is going to be fine,’ she told him. She knew this couldn’t possibly be true, but as she stroked the military straight line of John-Paul’s greying hair on his neck, she finally understood something about herself.

She would never ask him to confess.

It seemed that all her vomiting in gutters and crying in pantries had been for show, because as long as nobody else was accused, she would keep his secret. Cecilia Fitzpatrick, who always volunteered first, who never sat quietly when something needed to be done, who always brought casseroles and gave up her time, who knew the difference between right and wrong, was prepared to look the other way. She could and she would allow another mother to suffer.

Her goodness had limits. She could have easily gone her whole life without knowing those limits, but now she knew exactly where they lay.

Chapter forty-four

‘Don’t be so stingy with the butter!’ demanded Lucy. ‘Hot cross buns are meant to be served dripping with butter. Have I taught you nothing?’

‘Have you heard nothing of the word “cholesterol”?’ said Tess, but she picked up the butter knife. She and her mother and Liam were sitting in the backyard in the morning sun drinking tea and eating toasted hot cross buns. Tess’s mother was wearing her pink quilted dressing-gown over her nightie and Tess and Liam were wearing their pyjamas.

The day had started out suitably dour for a Good Friday but had suddenly changed its mind and decided to twirl about and show off its autumn colours after all. There was a brisk, flirty breeze and the sun was pouring through the leaves of her mother’s flame tree.

‘Mum?’ said Liam with his mouth full.

‘Mmm?’ said Tess. She held her face up to the sun, her eyes closed. She felt peaceful and sleepy. There had been more sex last night in Connor’s apartment after they’d come back from the beach. It was even more spectacular than the previous night. He had certain skills that were really quite . . . outstanding. Had he read a book perhaps? Will had never read that book. It was curious how last week sex was just a pleasant semiregular pastime she never really thought about. And now, this week, it was all-consuming, as if it were all that really mattered about life, as if these moments in between sexual encounters were irrelevant, not really living.

She felt like she was becoming addicted to Connor and the particular curve of his upper lip and the breadth of his shoulders and his -

‘Mum!’ said Liam again.

‘Yeah.’

‘When are –’

‘Finish what’s in your mouth.’

‘When are Daddy and Felicity coming? For Easter?’

Tess opened her eyes and glanced at her mother, who raised her eyebrows.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said to Liam. ‘I have to talk to them. They might have to work.’

‘They can’t work at Easter! I want to see Dad headbutt my rabbit egg.’

Somehow they’d started the somewhat violent Easter Sunday tradition of beginning the day with the ceremonial headbutting of a chocolate Easter bunny. Will and Liam both found the poor bunny’s caved-in face to be hysterically funny.