I sipped obediently.

'It was about your father and me, Jane. Our affair.'

I went on sipping my tea, but my hands felt very large and clumsy around the tea cup. Carefully, I put the cup back on the table, with an effort so that it wouldn't spill.

'Go on.'

'I had had a brief affair with your father in the summer of the previous year. He and your mother were not getting on very well, and you know what Alan was like. He was away in America for much of the summer. I was lonely; all the children were growing up and I felt my life was slipping by.' She stopped and made a sharp gesture with her hand. 'Enough, I don't want to make excuses for myself. I'm not proud of it, and it didn't last long. We never told anyone. Christopher didn't tell your mother; I never told Alan. And we were very secretive about it. We never wanted to hurt anyone.'

She took a very small, neat bite of cake.

'Natalie found a letter Christopher had written to me. She must have gone through all my drawers. She confronted me with it: she wasn't angry exactly, that was the funny thing, more triumphant. She said that I pretended to be so much better than Alan, and really I was just the same. She said she was going to tell your mother and Alan. She said' - Martha's voice was dry - 'that it was her duty.'

Martha stopped, and the kitchen felt very still as she waited for me to speak.

'Did she tell anybody?'

'I don't think so. Not that I ever knew.'

'But she might have told Alan.'

'I don't know.'

'Why are you telling me now, after all these years?'

Martha gave a weary shrug. 'Perhaps because it's a good time to uncover family secrets. Perhaps because I will die sometime soon, and I needed to confess, and I thought you might understand. Perhaps because you're the one who's rooting around for the truth.'

I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say, and I didn't know what I was thinking. I tried to imagine my father with Martha, but I could only picture them as they were now: old, with papery skin and liver spots and stubborn habits. Martha turned back the pages to the drawing of the little girl and the setting sun.

'That's Natalie,' she said. 'I know it doesn't look like Natalie, except the mouth maybe. But it's how I always think of Natalie. She was a loner, you know. She snooped round other people's lives and she had boyfriends and went to parties, but she was always alone. I was her mother, but sometimes I felt she was a stranger. All the boys, oh they pretended to be grown up and independent, and they shrugged me away or were rude to me when their friends came round, but they needed needed me and they were always so transparent. Natalie, though, I often felt rejected by Natalie. I'd always thought we would have an intimate relationship, two women in a house of men.' me and they were always so transparent. Natalie, though, I often felt rejected by Natalie. I'd always thought we would have an intimate relationship, two women in a house of men.'

She stood up and cleared away our plates.

'You make those phone calls you were talking about; I'm going to get those cuttings for your garden.' Pulling on her jacket, she picked up a pair of secateurs and disappeared into the garden.

Mechanically, I did as Martha suggested, and hunted through my address book until I came across the name of Judith Parsons (nee Gill, one of my best friends from school). She was surprised and thrilled to hear from me: how was I in London, how were my sons, isn't it awful how time flies, yes it would be wonderful to meet up - sometimes she and Brendon came to London and then she'd be sure to give me a ring. As we were about to say goodbye to each other I asked, casually, guiltily, oh, by the way, did she happen to have Chrissie Pilkington's phone number. I was going to be working near where she lived for a few days and thought it would be jolly to catch up with her. Judith's enthusiasm dampened slightly. Yes, she had the number, but she was Christina Colvin now: I jotted the details down in my address book, dialled again. Gill, one of my best friends from school). She was surprised and thrilled to hear from me: how was I in London, how were my sons, isn't it awful how time flies, yes it would be wonderful to meet up - sometimes she and Brendon came to London and then she'd be sure to give me a ring. As we were about to say goodbye to each other I asked, casually, guiltily, oh, by the way, did she happen to have Chrissie Pilkington's phone number. I was going to be working near where she lived for a few days and thought it would be jolly to catch up with her. Judith's enthusiasm dampened slightly. Yes, she had the number, but she was Christina Colvin now: I jotted the details down in my address book, dialled again.

Christina Pilkington-now-Colvin was not so happy to hear from me. I could understand that. It had been twenty-five years since we'd last seen each other. I brought back memories she must have wanted suppressed. But she reluctantly agreed to have me round for tea later that afternoon. I wrote down directions, and just before I put the phone down she said, suddenly, 'My husband will be there, Jane.'

Martha loaded the cuttings into the back of my car, then gestured towards the pile of children's books on the table.

'They're for your grandchildren, Jane. One day.' And then, at last, we hugged each other.

The Colvins lived just outside Oxford in a large neo-Tudor house, all timber and diamond windows, with a swimming pool in the garden, and an avenue of rhododendrons. I've always hated rhododendrons. Bright flowers and shiny leaves and nothing lives under them.

I would not have recognised Chrissie. When I knew her she was thin and tall, with startling blonde hair always piled on top of her head. Now she seemed shorter - or perhaps she seemed shorter because she was so much wider. Her substantial body was packed tightly into smart white trousers and a green shirt, and placed on high heels. Her wild skinny beauty was quite gone. I could see she was anxious beneath her make-up. We shook hands; neither of us could decide whether to kiss each other on the cheek, and as we were havering, a stout man in a grey suit came out of the house, hugged me warmly and said over the top of Chrissie's half-hearted introduction: 'How lovely for Chrissie to see an old schoolfriend. I've heard so much about you, Jane.' I doubted that. 'Tea? Or would you like something stronger?'

'Tea would be fine, thank you.'

'Right. Then I'll leave you two lovely ladies to talk. You must have so much to catch up on.'

'Ian's a company director,' said Chrissie, as if in explanation. We went into the house. I could hear a dutiful tinkling from a piano upstairs. 'My daughter, Chloe. Leonore's with a friend.'

We sat in the living room, among plumped up cushions and prints of flowers and landscapes. Chrissie didn't offer me tea.

'Why have you really come?' she asked.

'Have you heard about Natalie?'

She nodded.

'That's why I've come.'

Chrissie looked nervously round, as if her husband might be standing in the doorway. 'I've nothing to say, Jane. That was over twenty years ago, and I don't even want to think about it, let alone talk about it.'

'Twenty-five years.'

'Twenty-five years, then. Please, Jane.'

'When did you last see Alan?'

'I said I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it.'

'Does your husband know that when you were fifteen you had a s.e.xual relationship with Alan Martello? Is he understanding about it?'

Chrissie started and looked me in the eyes. I felt sorry for her, but triumphant also because I could see that she was going to talk to me. She shrugged.

'I haven't seen Alan since Natalie disappeared. I don't expect you to understand, but he was so... glamorous, if you can believe it. I was just a kid, and he was this famous man and he gave me things and told me how beautiful I was.' She laughed bitterly. 'It seems strange now, doesn't it? When he wanted to sleep with me I didn't stand a chance.' She looked down at her perfect red nails and then said, almost smugly, 'He nearly ruined my life. Why don't you blame Alan, not me?'

'Come on, Chrissie, don't exaggerate. It was only s.e.x. Didn't you enjoy it at all?'

'I don't know. I don't think about it.'

'So why did you tell Natalie?'

Chrissie looked surprised.

'I didn't. She followed us to the woods once. And she saw us, you know.'

Chrissie had an air of prim triumph.

'Did you see that she was there?'

'Yes.'

'So what happened?'

'What do you expect? Alan started sort of wailing. He crawled over to Natalie and he started tugging her skirt, and saying that she was his darling girl and how could she ever forgive her old dad, and you know what men are like, and how Martha would suffer. It was pretty embarra.s.sing really.'

'What did Natalie do?'

'She just walked away.'

'What did Alan do then?'

Chrissie looked straight at me. For the first time I could see the provocative heedless look of the adolescent Chrissie.

'He pushed me back onto the ground and f.u.c.ked me. I think it had excited him. That was the last time, though.' There was a chilly silence. 'Now you can tell my husband all about it.'

'You went out with Theo after that, didn't you?'

'Ask him.'

'What about Natalie? You know she was pregnant, don't you?'

'I've seen the papers.'

'Who do you think was the father?'

'I don't know. Whatever his name was-Luke McCann, I suppose.'

As I left, Chrissie's successful husband waved cheerfully. 'Do come again soon, Jane, it's always nice to see Chrissie's old chums.'

From the car, I saw Chrissie, a middle-aged woman wearing too much lipstick, and I saw what must have been Chloe, the piano-playing daughter, standing at an upstairs window. She looked just like the Chrissie of twenty-five years ago. That must have been hard for Chrissie to bear. I drove away with an embarra.s.sing screech of tyres, and all the way back to London I thought about s.e.x and its strangeness and embarra.s.sments.

Eighteen Against all expectations, I felt that my a.n.a.lysis was making me less judgemental than I had been. Instead of brooding about Martha and about Chrissie, or conducting a sterile debate about it all in my mind, I could talk to Alex about it. He wasn't shocked by the things I was telling him and he wasn't pruriently interested and although he could be critical of me, scathing indeed, I never had to apologise to him. When it came down to it, I believed that he was on my side. I trusted him. Well, who else could I trust?

The day after returning to London, I arrived at Alex's house with bundles of Christmas shopping, like a traveller pa.s.sing through. I leant the bags against the couch. Occasionally, as I talked, I ran my fingers along their rumpled plastic, a sensation of normality. I needed it. When I told him about Martha and my father, I almost thought he might laugh, it seemed so excessive and sleazy and pathetic. But he didn't and he didn't offer any stupid sympathy. And when I described the encounter with Chrissie, I thought he might be irritated by this new example of my amateur detective work. I was a bit apologetic and defensive as I repeated what she had said about all the awfulness with Alan and Natalie and I was surprised when Alex only nodded with interest.

'I'm not going to be able to dissuade you from this sleuthing, am I?' There was a note of exasperation, but it was okay.

'It's not sleuthing, Alex. It's just pottering around, really. I have this feeling I'm looking for something. I just don't know exactly what it is.'

'Yes.' Alex sounded pensive. 'I just wonder if you might be looking in the wrong place.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'You intrigue me, Jane. You have the technique of a magician. When you point me in one direction, I feel it's a sleight-of-hand and the important thing is happening somewhere else.'

'That all sounds too clever for me.'

'You're deceiving yourself as well, of course. Something is looming ahead and you both want and don't want to find it.'

'What do you mean, Alex? Do you think I'm on the right track?'

There was another of Alex's long pauses. I could feel my own breathing and my heart like a ball bouncing inside my chest. Something was coming. When he spoke it was with great deliberation.

'What I feel, Jane, is that you are on the right track in the sense that I think there is something definite to be found. But you're looking for it in the wrong place. You're going to talk to people who are never going to be able to solve your problem. Where you should really be looking is in there.'

I felt Alex's cool hand on my brow and I almost jumped away from the couch. It wasn't the first time he had ever touched me, but it felt startlingly intimate. Surely he had missed my point.

'Alex, I'm not denying that your therapy is important and helpful. But when I'm talking to people, then, in my confused and pathetic way, I'm looking for something specific. I'm trying to find something that's out there, the truth about something that actually happened.'

'Do you think I'm saying any different, Jane?'

'What are you talking about? Are you saying that I already know the answer? That I know who killed Natalie?'

'Know is a complicated word.' is a complicated word.'

I felt a sudden crawling sensation on my skin. 'Are you accusing me of something?'

Alex laughed soothingly. 'No, Jane, of course not.'

'But if I knew, well, then I'd... er, know, wouldn't I? I would remember.'

'Would you? Wait a second.'

Alex got up and left the room and then returned with a battered yellow folder and a ring-bound notebook. 'Let me take the initiative for a moment,' he said as he sat down again. 'I want to ask you a series of questions about yourself.'

'Am I being tested for something?'

'Don't think about that. Just answer. Only if you want to, but I think it will be a help.'

'All right.'

'I'm going to ask quite a few questions. You can be as brief as you like with your answers. Just yes or no, if you want. Okay?' Alex clicked his pen and began. After each answer he scribbled a brief note.

'Are you scared of the dark, Jane?'

'Yes.'

'Have you been having bad dreams?'

'I think so. I'm not very good at remembering them.'

'Do you ever worry about your body? Are there bits about it that you don't like?'

'Yes, of course, but only in the way everybody does.'

This was fun. It reminded me of the personality tests I find irresistible in magazines.

'Have you ever suffered from gynaecological problems?'

'I used to get cyst.i.tis a lot. I don't know if that counts.'

'Headaches? Arthritis?'