Bored with the TV, Sophie wandered towards the kitchen for a drink. She quite fancied a huge glass of fizzy Coke, but guessed she’d have to settle for one of the fruit juices Paul made in his blender. The lime and cucumber was okay, but the apple, mint and spinach was foul.

‘Won’t be long,’ Paul said, sailing past.

Dressed in his gym clothes, Sophie noticed. He’d offered to get her a membership, but Sophie wasn’t all that into gyms. She’d said she’d try it. Despite all this healthy eating, though, she’d been so exhausted lately, she wasn’t sure she could be bothered to drag herself as far as the lift.

‘Did my phone arrive yet?’ she asked him, coming back with her juice and trying hard not to wince as she swallowed a mouthful.

‘Afraid not.’ Paul smiled regretfully. ‘We’ll see about chasing it later.’

He still didn’t trust her to use his laptop or his phone in his absence. He turned down her requests nicely, pointing out the importance of client confidentiality and all that crap, but it rankled that he didn’t trust her enough not to poke around in his files. Like he’d got more to hide than boring old financial reports.

‘Why don’t you have a browse through the new Florida brochures I bought,’ he suggested. ‘We’ll be going in a few days.’

That was a little vague, Sophie thought. He’d said he hadn’t confirmed the flights when she’d asked him, and, while she realised it would be him forking out for them, she still had to have some clothes if she was going on holiday. ‘I might,’ she said, yawning.

‘Manners, Sophie,’ Paul reminded her, with a tolerant smile.

‘Sorry,’ Sophie said, pressing a hand to her mouth as she yawned again, and then watching with interest as Paul checked his jacket pocket for his phone, bringing out his study keys as he did and then plopping them back in his jacket.

‘Half an hour,’ he said, heading for the front door. ‘Don’t forget to take your vitamins.’

‘I already did,’ Sophie assured him, yawning widely again.

Waiting until he’d gone, Sophie stopped yawning, nipped to the loo, flushed the vitamin tablets away – she was sure the bloody things were making her sleepy – and then flew over to his jacket to retrieve the keys. It was now or never. He’d kept that door locked religiously since the one time she’d been in there, even coming back an hour after he’d gone out once. He’d made some other excuse, but he’d come back to make sure he’d locked the study, Sophie was sure of it. Plus, she hadn’t been able to get the photo on his desk out of her mind, and the fact that Justin had been cropped out of it. Then there was the envelope. Sophie had glimpsed more photos in there.

She’d bet those were of his family. She was hoping they were. He’d been okay to her – generous – but despite being under the same roof as him, she still didn’t know that much about him. He didn’t talk about his family, didn’t have a single photo of them anywhere around the apartment, and to Sophie, who’d lived in a home where family photos were dotted about everywhere, that just seemed odd.

Two minutes later, she was in the study, fumbling to find the right key for the drawer in which she’d seen the envelope. Bingo! Finally, she unlocked it, hurriedly extracting the envelope and peering inside. She squinted and tipped the contents out. These weren’t photos of his family. Furrowing her brow, Sophie splayed them out on top of the desk. They were their family photos. Photographs taken mostly by Justin, of her and her mum. She recognised some of the backgrounds. Their bloody back garden, for one. Their lounge at Christmas. The holiday chalet they’d had in France. The boat they’d hired to tour Ireland. There were some later ones, as well, that she’d taken herself, of Justin and her mum, and Justin had been crudely cropped out of every one of them. Chopped out, with scissors. He hadn’t even cut the photos in straight lines.

Why had he done that? How had he got them? Surely her mum hadn’t given them to him?

Her heart like a big bass drum in her chest, Sophie shuffled through a few more and then stopped, a knot of apprehension tightening her tummy as she noticed that there were also much more recent photographs. Photographs that Luke should have been in – a family portrait, in particular. Sophie remembered that one so clearly. Her mum had had it framed for the hall wall. Justin had a copy of it in his office. In the photo, Sophie was sitting next to her mum on the sofa, her arm around her shoulders. Luke had been in her mum’s arms, but now he was gone. Cropped out. Like he didn’t exist.

There were more photographs in another drawer, all exclusively of her mum. Not posed, these photos hadn’t been taken by Justin or her. They’d been taken by Paul, Sophie realised. Photos from over the years: Alicia walking along the street; loading her shopping into the car; coming out of the office where she worked. There was one of her painting their house, for fuck’s sake. Hadn’t he been in Dubai, time slipping by while he worked himself to death trying to get over the loss of his family?

Liar!

Scraping the photos together and furiously shoving them back in their envelope, Sophie put it back, slammed the drawer shut and moved to the last drawer.

It was stuck. Shit! Checking the time on the desk clock, she glanced worriedly towards the door and then yanked at the drawer. It was definitely jammed, not locked. Crouching down, pressing one hand against the desk for leverage, she tugged harder, and then fell back on her haunches as it gave.

Scrambling back, Sophie peered into it, and her heart skittered to a stop inside her. It was fairly obvious what had caused it to jam. Swallowing back a sick taste in her throat, Sophie reached for it: Luke’s pink elephant toy. One of its floppy ears had got caught between the desk and the drawer and been torn clean off. He’d stuffed it in there as if it didn’t matter. As if it wasn’t the most important thing Sophie had ever, or would ever, possess in her life.

He’d taken it. Taken it from her.

A huge lump in her throat, Sophie lifted it to her face and sniffed it. His scent was still there – barely. Her little baby brother. Choking back the tears that stung the backs of her eyes, she delved further into the drawer. Feeling something smooth and cold towards the back of it, something with a chain attached, she fished it out. It was a locket. A gold locket, decorated with a flower motif.

Her mum’s?

Sophie stopped breathing. With trembling fingers, she prised it open. Luke’s little face looked back at her. His perfect cupid lips were curved into a delighted, gummy smile. His beautiful blue eyes, wide with the innocence of childhood, were dancing with glee.

Oh God, Luke.

Her mum hadn’t given him this. She hadn’t given him any of this. He’d taken these, too. Feeling the room shift around her, Sophie tried to breathe slowly, like Justin had once taught her, when she’d had a major panic about her part in the school play. Calm – he’d always been that. Calm and measured. Suddenly, Sophie wanted very much to go home.

Having a final check in the drawer, she wasn’t surprised, somehow, to find her old phone as well as the new one.

Breathe. Doing what Justin would, Sophie tried to focus. Sliding the phone into her back pocket, she fastened the locket shakily around her neck, making sure it dropped below her neckline. Then, resting pink Ephalump, as they’d christened him, on the desk, she used her foot to shove the stuck drawer back into place and then relocked the other drawers.

Checking everything looked as it should at first glance, her gaze snagged on something she hadn’t previously noticed on the top of his in tray. Seeing the letter was from The DNA People, she snatched it up, quickly pulling the contents out.

It was a paternity test. The report included all sorts of indecipherable tables – Genetic System Table, Combined Paternity Index – and figures relating to ‘case number’, ‘child, mother’, ‘alleged father’. Nausea almost choking her, Sophie hurriedly scanned it. She couldn’t digest the information enough to understand it. It made no sense – until she reached the Paternity Test Conclusions, which clearly stated that ‘Paul Radley is excluded as the biological father.’

Shaking, Sophie blinked at it, uncomprehending for a second, and then froze.

‘Do you not understand basic instructions, Sophie?’ Paul said, his face white with anger as he walked quietly through the study door and saw the letter in her hand.