Is that what you want, Cecilia? Some nice big exciting tragedy?

Of course she didn’t.

The German voices from Esther’s computer tickled irritatingly at her ear.

‘Can you please turn that off,’ Cecilia said to Esther. ‘It’s distracting.’

‘Just let me –’

‘Turn it off! Couldn’t one of you children just once do what I ask, the first time? Without negotiating? Just once?’

The sound went off.

In the rear-vision mirror she saw Polly raise her eyebrows and Esther shrug and lift her palms. What’s with her? No idea. Cecilia could remember similar silent conversations with Bridget in the back of her mother’s car.

‘Sorry,’ said Cecilia humbly after a few seconds. ‘I’m sorry, girls. I’m just . . .’

Worried that your father is lying to me about something? In need of sex? Wishing I hadn’t babbled on the way I did to Tess O’Leary in the schoolyard this morning? Perimenopausal?

‘. . . missing Daddy,’ she finished. ‘It will be nice when he’s home from America, won’t it? He’ll be so happy to see you girls!’

‘Yeah he will,’ sighed Polly. She paused. ‘And Isabel.’

‘Of course,’ said Cecilia. ‘Isabel too.’

‘Daddy looks at Isabel a funny way,’ said Polly conversationally.

That was way out of left field.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Cecilia. Sometimes Polly came up with the strangest things.

‘All the time,’ said Polly. ‘He looks at her weirdly.’

‘No he doesn’t,’ said Esther.

‘Yeah, he looks at her like it’s hurting his eyes. Like he’s angry and sad at the same time. Especially when she wears that new skirt.’

‘Well, that’s a silly sort of thing to say,’ said Cecilia. What in the world did the child mean? If she didn’t know any better, she would think that Polly was describing John-Paul looking at Isabel in a sexual way.

‘Maybe Daddy is mad with Isabel about something,’ said Polly. ‘Or he just feels sad that she’s his daughter. Mum, do you know why Daddy is mad with Isabel? Did she do something bad?’

A panicky feeling rose in Cecilia’s throat.

‘He probably wanted to watch the cricket on TV,’ mused Polly. ‘And Isabel wanted to watch something else. Or, I don’t know.’

Isabel had been so grumpy lately, refusing to answer questions and slamming the door, but wasn’t that what all twelve-year-old girls did?

Cecilia thought of those stories she’d read about sexual abuse. Stories in the Daily Telegraph where the mother said, ‘I had no idea,’ and Cecilia thought, How could you not know? She always finished those stories with a comfortable sense of superiority. This could not happen to my daughters.

John-Paul could be strangely moody at times. His face turned to granite. You couldn’t reason with him. But didn’t all men do that at times? Cecilia remembered how she and her mother and sister had once tiptoed around her father’s moods. Not any more. Age had mellowed him. Cecilia had assumed that would happen to John-Paul one day too. She was looking forward to it.

But John-Paul would never harm his daughters. This was ridiculous. This was Jerry Springer stuff. It was a betrayal of John-Paul to allow the faintest shadow of doubt to cross her mind. Cecilia would stake her life on the fact that John-Paul wouldn’t abuse one of his daughters.

But would she stake one of her daughters’ lives?

No. If there was the smallest risk . . .

Dear God, what was she meant to do? Ask Isabel, ‘Has Daddy ever touched you?’ Victims lied. Their abusers told them to lie. She knew how it worked. She read all those trashy stories. She liked having a quick cathartic little weep before folding up the newspaper, putting it in the recycling bin and forgetting all about it. Those stories gave her a sick sort of pleasure, whereas John-Paul always refused to read them. Was that a clue to his guilt? Aha! If you don’t like reading about sick people you’re sick yourself!

‘Mum!’ said Polly.

How could she possibly confront John-Paul? ‘Have you ever done anything inappropriate to one of our daughters?’ If he asked a question like that of her, she would never forgive him. How could a marriage continue when a question like that was asked? ‘No, I haven’t ever molested our daughters. Pass the peanut butter please.’

‘Mum!’ said Polly again.

You shouldn’t have to ask, he’d say. If you don’t know the answer, you don’t know me.

She did know the answer. She did!

But then all those other stupid mothers thought they knew the answer too.

And John-Paul had been so strange on the phone when she’d asked him about that letter. He had been lying about something. She was sure of it.

And there was the sex thing. Perhaps he’d lost interest in Cecilia because he was lusting after Isabel’s changing young body? It was laughable. It was revolting. She felt sick.

‘MUM!’

‘Mmm?’

‘Look! You drove right past the street! We’re going to be late!’

‘Sorry. Damn it. Sorry.’

She slammed on her brakes to do a U-turn. There was a furious shriek of a horn from behind them and Cecilia’s heart leapt into her chest as she looked in her rear-vision mirror and saw a huge truck.

‘Shit.’ She raised a hand in apology. ‘Sorry. Yes, yes, I know!’

The truck driver couldn’t forgive her and kept his hand pressed on the horn.

‘Sorry, sorry!’ As she completed her U-turn she looked up to wave her apology again (she had the Tupperware name emblazoned down one side of her car – she didn’t want to damage the company’s reputation). The driver had wound down his window and was leaning almost halfway out, his face ugly with rage as he slammed his fist over and over into the palm of his hand.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she muttered.

‘I think that man wants to kill you,’ said Polly.

‘That man is very naughty,’ said Cecilia severely. Her heart sped as she drove sedately back to the dance studio, double-checking all her mirrors and indicating her intentions well in advance.

She wound down her window and watched as Polly ran into the studio, her pink tulle tutu bobbing, her delicate shoulderblades jutting out like wings beneath the straps of her leotard.

Melissa McNulty appeared at the door and waved to indicate that as per their arrangement she was taking care of Polly. Cecilia waved back and reversed.

‘If this was Berlin and Caroline’s office was on the other side of the Wall, I wouldn’t be able to go to speech therapy,’ said Esther.

‘Good point,’ said Cecilia.

‘We could help her escape! We could put her in the boot of the car. She’s pretty little. I think she’d fit. Unless she gets claustrophobia like Daddy.’

‘I feel like Caroline is the sort of person who would probably organise her own escape,’ said Cecilia. We’ve already spent enough on her! We’re not going to help her escape from East Berlin! Esther’s speech therapist was intimidating, with her perfect vowels. Whenever Cecilia spoke to her she caught herself articulating all her syllables ve-ry care-ful-ly, as if she was doing an elocution test.

‘I don’t think Daddy looks at Isabel funny,’ said Esther.

‘Don’t you?’ said Cecilia happily. Good Lord. How melodramatic she was being. Polly made one of her peculiar little observations and Cecilia’s mind jumped straight to sexual abuse. She must be watching too much trashy television.

‘But he was crying the other day before he went to Chicago,’ said Esther.

‘What?’

‘In the shower,’ said Esther. ‘I went into your bathroom to get the nail scissors and Daddy was crying.’

‘Well, darling, did you ask him why he was crying?’ said Cecilia, trying not to show just how much she cared about the answer.

‘Nope,’ said Esther breezily. ‘When I’m crying I don’t like to be interrupted.’

Dammit. If it had been Polly, she would have pulled back the shower screen and demanded an immediate answer from her father.