Counting steadily, his gaze fixed downwards, Justin kept walking. He didn’t much care where. He just needed space to think. He had to be getting this out of proportion. There was no way Alicia could have had an affair! He would have known. He would have known!

Had he read all the signs but refused to acknowledge it? He’d certainly wondered about her staying over at a girlfriend’s more than once. The evasive eye contact when he’d asked her which friend. He’d dismissed it. Told himself he was being paranoid. His biggest fear, when he’d woken up to the fact that he’d been so wrapped up in his grief over his family that he’d barely paid her any attention, had been that he would lose her. So, what if she had? Justin felt his heart drift free from its moorings. What then? He had absolutely no idea what he would do. None.

Reaching his road, he was surprised to see Jessica’s car parked outside the house. They must have left the funeral soon after he had. Probably because he had. He shouldn’t have, but how could he have stayed? How could he have made polite conversation when he felt as if he were dying inside?

Groping for some sort of composure, Justin let himself through the front door, where he found Jessica and Sophie in the hall.

‘Dad!’ Relief flooding her face, Sophie flung herself towards him. ‘Are you all right?’

Wrapping an arm around her, Justin squeezed her shoulders. ‘I’m okay, Pumpkin,’ he assured her, his throat tight. Glancing past her, he looked along the hall, and then, seeing no evidence of Alicia, looked questioningly back to Jessica.

‘I think Alicia’s gone to the reception to thank people,’ Jessica supplied. ‘Sophie was upset, so I offered to drive back with her.’

He shouldn’t have left his daughter. Justin glanced down at her, his gut wrenching as he noted her swollen eyes and smudged make-up. He hadn’t been thinking straight. Then again, maybe he had. Maybe he was now acknowledging something he’d refused to see before.

‘Why don’t you go and grab your stuff, Sophie?’ Jessica smiled encouragingly in Sophie’s direction. ‘I’ll have a quick word with your dad.’

Sophie looked uncertainly between them, and then nodded. She was halfway up the stairs when there was a knock at the front door.

Justin opened it to find Sophie’s friend Chloe standing there. ‘I just wondered if Sophie was okay,’ she said, glancing towards the stairs. ‘I can come back if you’re busy.’

‘It’s okay, Chloe,’ Sophie called, coming back down. ‘Ten minutes,’ she said to Jessica.

Justin smiled, feeling relieved, as she headed past him to go outside, probably wanting to talk in private. He was glad she had a friend who obviously cared. She would need one – perhaps more than she knew.

Jessica waited until the front door had closed. ‘She’s coming to stay with me for a while, if that’s okay?’ she said, smiling sympathetically at Justin. ‘She was actually very upset after you’d gone. And Alicia was… Well, you know, busy talking to people. I thought it might be a good idea to get Sophie away from the house for a few days.’

‘Right.’ Justin nodded tightly, guessing Jessica had diplomatically stopped short of stating the obvious: that Alicia had been too busy talking to her ‘old acquaintance’ to notice how upset her daughter was. ‘And is Sophie okay with that?’ he asked, concerned that she might feel pushed out in some way.

‘I think she could use some breathing space, to be honest,’ Jess said, obviously well aware of the emotional toll all of this would have had on her. ‘I thought we’d watch some girly films together, go out for a meal maybe. You know, do normal stuff. It might do her good.’

Justin guessed it probably would. Things had been far from normal here. Judging by their conversation the other night, pushed out was exactly how Sophie did feel.

‘She needs you, Justin,’ Jess reminded him – as if she needed to. ‘Alicia’s bound to be a bit preoccupied now, but Sophie’s going to need someone to talk to.’

Preoccupied with what, exactly? ‘So it would seem,’ Justin said, heading past her to the lounge. He didn’t want to have this conversation in the hall.

‘I can’t even begin to imagine what you must be going through,’ Jess said, following him. ‘I mean, I know Luke’s death has devastated you both, but it must be so much harder on a man, when you’re supposed to be the strong one, holding everybody else up. I could see how upset you were today. I just wanted you to know you have a shoulder, if you need one.’

‘Thanks, Jess,’ Justin said distractedly, and then, running a hand wearily over his neck, he headed for the drinks table.

Pouring a large whisky, which he felt badly in need of after the day’s events, his gaze fell on one of their old Adele CDs that Sophie had left on the table. Would she get through this? Would he ever hear her sing again? They’d never derided her ambition to be a pop artist. She emulated Adele so beautifully; if Justin closed his eyes, he really believed it was her. She was good, though she probably needed to hone her individuality. He’d been partway through converting the basement into a studio – that was going to be his present to her for her sixteenth birthday. Now, he had no idea what the future would hold.

Taking a long drink of the whisky, which burned the back of his throat but did nothing to warm him, he placed the glass back on the table, stared at it for a second and then braced himself. ‘Can I ask you something, Jess?’ he said, looking cautiously towards her.

‘Anything,’ Jess assured him.

Justin doubted she’d be so ready to answer when she heard the question. ‘Sophie…’ He paused, not sure he actually wanted to hear the answer. ‘Is she mine?’

‘What?’ Jessica paled.

‘You’re closest to Alicia, Jess,’ Justin went on quietly. ‘I have to know. Am I Sophie’s father?’

Hearing himself speak the words, Justin felt like a complete bastard. How was he supposed not to ask though? He’d gone over and over it. Radley had worked with Alicia sixteen years ago, when she’d been with the financial services company. Justin remembered it well, the details brought sharply back into focus by the man’s reappearance. It had been then that he’d lost his family. Then that, spiralling into a depression he couldn’t seem to climb out of, he’d pushed Alicia away, rather than reach out to her. He’d finally woken up to the fact that he’d been so immersed in his grief he was paying no attention to her needs when she’d started staying out: spending nights with a girlfriend, she’d said. He’d hated himself for it, but he had wondered whether that was the truth. She’d had every reason to give up on him. With his emotions all over the place, he’d been impossible to live with. He’d tried to convince himself he was being paranoid, his suspicions based on nothing but the fear of losing her, too. They’d got through that rocky period. They’d been a strong family unit ever since. He’d thought they had. It had taken him a while, though, to stop looking for the signs.

Something else had also occurred to him as he’d walked, something which had turned his gut inside out. Justin had noticed it when Radley had been watching him, a challenge in his eyes, at that fateful party: the man’s eyes were brown. Striking brown. Sophie’s eyes were a rich chestnut brown, where his and Alicia’s were blue. Genetically speaking, it was rare, though it was possible. He’d tried to rationalise it, but now… Was he being paranoid all over again? The fact that Radley seemed to pop up wherever Alicia was, was he imagining that? Imagining the fact that the man was all over her? Justin thought not. He hoped to God he was wrong.

His heart constricting painfully, he waited for Jessica to answer.

Jessica, though, didn’t seem to want to answer, looking away instead, looking anywhere but at him. Looking guilty. ‘You need to talk to Alicia,’ she said, eventually.

And Justin knew. Without a doubt, he now knew what he so desperately didn’t want to. Already bursting with grief and guilt, his heart damn near exploded.