‘I don’t care about losing anything now. I’d rather have him anyday,’ I sniffed. ‘We’ve lost everything now, including him. I mean, what was the point? When they repossessed the house, I think that was it for him.’ I studied him golfing with Mum, his face serious as he looked into the distance for his ball. ‘They could take everything but not that.’

I turned the page and we both laughed. Me, two front teeth missing as I hugged Mickey Mouse in Disney World.

‘Aren’t you…I don’t know…angry at him? If my dad did that, I’d…’ Weseley shook his head, unable to imagine it.

‘I was,’ I replied. ‘I was so angry at him for so long. But over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about what he must have been going through. Even in my lowest days I never could do what he did. He must have felt so much pressure, he must have been so miserable. He must have felt so trapped, must just not have wanted to be here so much. And…well, when he died they couldn’t take anything else. Mum and I were protected.’

‘You think he did it for you?’

‘I think he did it for a lot of reasons. For all the wrong reasons, but for him they were all right.’

‘Well, I think you’re very brave,’ Weseley said and I looked up at him and tried not to cry.

‘I don’t feel brave.’

‘You are,’ he said. Our eyes locked.

‘I’ve made the most stupid embarrassing mistakes,’ I whispered.

‘That’s okay. We all make mistakes,’ he smiled wryly.

‘Well, I don’t think I make as many as you,’ I added, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘You seem to make different mistakes with different people almost every night.’

He laughed. ‘Okay let’s see what Rosaleen’s hiding under here.’

Unable to take my eyes off the photo albums, I began another and found my baby photos. I got lost in another world and lost time. In the background I could hear Weseley commenting on things he was finding, but I ignored him. Instead I stared at my beautiful dad, happy and handsome, with Mum. Then there was a photo of my christening day. Just me and Mum. Me so tiny in her arms all that was visible beneath the white blanket was a little pink head.

‘Holy shit, Tamara, take a look at this.’

I ignored him, lost in the photo of me and Mum in the church. She was holding me in her arms, a big smile on her face. Whoever had taken the picture-Dad, I assume-had left their finger over the corner of the lens, blocking the priest’s face. Knowing Dad, it was probably on purpose. I rubbed his big white finger bright from the flash, and I laughed.

‘Tamara, look at all this stuff.’

The photograph captured half of the priest, Mum, me in her arms at the baptism bowl, another person cut off on the right-hand side, thanks to the dodgy photo skills, but somebody’s hand was resting on the top of my head. A woman’s hand, I could tell from the ring on her finger. Probably Rosaleen, my godmother who never seemed to do what my friends’ godmothers did, which was just send cards at every occasion with money inside. No, my godmother wanted to spend time with me. Puke.

‘Tamara.’ Weseley grabbed me and I jumped. ‘Look at this.’ His eyes were wide. He took me by the hand and a tingle shot up my arm.

I shoved the christening photograph in my pocket and followed him.

Any funny feelings for him quickly evaporated. I looked around the section that Weseley had unveiled of its sheets.

‘What’s the big deal?’ I asked unimpressed. It was hardly as exciting as he was making it out to be. Old furniture as dated as anything I’d ever seen. Books, pokers, crockery, paintings all covered up, fabrics, rugs, fireplaces leaning up against the wall, all kinds of bric-a-brac.

‘What’s the big deal?’ His eyes were wide as he jumped about the place, picking things up, unveiling more oil paintings of evil-looking children with collars up past their ear lobes, and fat unattractive ladies with big boobs, wide wrists and thin lips. ‘Look at all this, Tamara. Look, don’t you notice anything?’

He knocked down a rug and kicked it with his foot. It unrolled onto the dusty floor.

‘Weseley, don’t make a mess,’ I snapped. ‘We don’t have long before they get back.’

‘Tamara, open your eyes. Look at the initials.’

I studied the rug, a dusty-looking thing that might belong on the wall as a tapestry instead of on the floor. It had Ks all over it.

‘And look at this.’ Weseley uncovered a box of china. It too had Ks stamped all over the plates, the teacups, the knives and forks. A dragon draped around a sword, climbing up from flames. Then I remembered the same emblem on the fireguard in the living room of the gatehouse.

‘K,’ I said dumbly. ‘I don’t get it. I don’t…’ I shook my head, looking around the garage, which at first had felt like rubbish and now seemed like a treasure chest.

‘K is for…’ Weseley said slowly as though I was a child, and looked at me, holding his breath.

‘Kangaroo,’ I said. ‘I don’t know, Weseley. I’m confused, I don’t-’

‘Kilsaney,’ he said, and chills rushed through me.

‘What? But it can’t be,’ I looked around. ‘How could they have all this stuff?’

‘Well, they either stole it…’

‘That’s it!’ It all made sense to me. They were thieves-not Arthur, but Rosaleen. I could believe that.

‘Or they’re storing it for the Kilsaneys,’ Weseley interrupted my thoughts. ‘Or…’ he grinned at me, eyebrows going up and down.

‘Or what.’

‘Or they are the Kilsaneys.’

I snorted, dismissing it immediately, then became distracted by a flash of red beneath a roll of carpet that Marcus had knocked over. ‘The photo album!’ I said, seeing the red album I’d found the week I’d arrived. ‘I knew I wasn’t imagining it.’

We sat down and looked through it, though probably getting dangerously close to the moment when Arthur and Rosaleen would return. There were black and white photographs of children, some sepia-coloured.

‘Recognise any of them?’ Weseley asked.

I shook my head and he speeded up as he flicked through.

‘Hold on.’ One photo caught my eye. ‘Go back.’

There was a photograph of two children surrounded by trees. One little girl, and a little boy a few years older. They stood facing one another, holding hands, their foreheads touching. An image of Arthur and Mum’s bizarre greeting on our first day here flashed through my mind.

‘That’s Mum and Arthur,’ I said, smiling. ‘She must be only around five years old there.’

‘Look at Arthur. He wasn’t even handsome as a child,’ Weseley teased, squinting and studying it closer.

‘Ah, don’t be mean,’ I laughed. ‘Look at them. I’ve never seen Mum as a child.’

The next page there was a photograph of Mum, Arthur, Rosaleen and another boy.

I gasped.

‘Your Mum and Rosaleen knew each other as kids,’ Weseley said. ‘Did you know that?’

‘No.’ I was breathless, dizzy. ‘No way. Nobody ever mentioned it.’

‘Who’s the guy at the end?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Does your mum have another brother? He looks the oldest.’

‘No, she doesn’t. Not that she ever mentioned…’

Weseley slipped his hand underneath the plastic covering and pulled the photo from the paper.

‘Weseley!’

‘We’ve gone this far-you want to know all this or not?’

I swallowed and nodded.

Weseley turned the photograph over.

It read: ‘Artie, Jen, Rose, Laurie. 1979’.

‘Laurie, apparently,’ Weseley said. ‘Ring any bells? Tamara, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Laurence Kilsaney RIP’ on the gravestone.

Arthur had called Rosaleen ‘Rose’ in the car on the way back from Dublin.

‘Laurie and Rose’ engraved on the apple tree.

‘He’s the man who died in the fire in the castle. Laurence Kilsaney. His name is on a grave in the Kilsaney graveyard.’

‘Oh.’

I stared at the photograph of the four of them, all smiling, the innocence on their face, everything ahead of them, a future of possiblities. Mum and Arthur were holding hands tightly, Laurence had his arm draped coolly around Rosaleen’s neck; it dangled limply across her chest. He stood on one leg, the other crossed it in a pose. He seemed confident, cocky even. His chin was lifted and he smiled at the camera with a grin as if he’d just shouted something at the photographer.