The drive took forty-three minutes.

Helena made it in thirty-eight.

She almost turned back twice.

Once at the junction where the road split toward the highway, and once parked outside a petrol station two miles from the address, engine running, hands on the wheel, staring at nothing.

She didn't turn back either time.

The house was a modest semi-detached on a quiet street.

A bicycle leaned against the front step.

A pot of geraniums, slightly overgrown.

The curtains in the front window were open.

Helena knocked.

The man who answered was in his mid-forties, dark-haired, with the kind of face that had once been easy and was now careful.

He looked at her for exactly one second before he said her name.

"Helena."

"You know who I am."

"Evelyn described you well." He stepped back from the door.

"Please come in."

The hallway was narrow and warm.

A child's drawing was taped to the wall beside the coat hooks — a house, a sun, two figures, one tall and one small.

Helena looked at it as she passed.

"Clara drew that last year," Thomas said.

"She draws a lot."

He led her into the kitchen.

A kettle was already on.

Two mugs were already on the counter.

"You were expecting me," Helena said.

"Diane texted when you left the park." He turned to face her.

"I've been expecting you for eight months, if I'm honest.

Since the funeral."

"You were at the funeral?"

"No." He set the mugs on the table.

"I wanted to be.

Evelyn made me promise to stay away.

She was afraid someone from your family would see me and Clara and—" He stopped.

Poured the water.

"She was still afraid of your father, even at the end."

Helena sat down.

"Tell me what happened," she said.

"All of it."

Thomas sat across from her.

He wrapped both hands around his mug and looked at her steadily, the way a man looks when he has rehearsed something many times and is deciding whether the rehearsed version is still the right one.

"Your father came to see me," he said.

"Nineteen years ago.

Before Evelyn left."

Helena went still.

"He came to my flat.

Alone.

He sat down — I offered him tea, he refused — and he told me that Evelyn was not going to continue the relationship.

He said it had been decided.

He said if I contacted her again, he would make certain I lost my job.

I was a junior accountant at the time.

He named my employer.

He named my supervisor.

He said he had connections there and that one phone call was all it would take."

"He threatened you."

"He was very polite about it." Thomas's voice was flat.

"That was the worst part.

He never raised his voice.

He just laid it out like a business arrangement and then he left." He looked down at his mug.

"I was twenty-six.

I was frightened.

I didn't call her."

"But she was already pregnant."

"She didn't tell me until after she'd gone.

She sent one letter, no return address, telling me about the baby.

Telling me she was safe.

Telling me not to look for her." He paused.

"I looked anyway.

For two years.

I couldn't find her."

"How did you find her?"

"I didn't.

She found me.

Clara was three years old.

Evelyn showed up at my door one evening — just like you did today — and she stood there and she said, 'I think she should know her father.'"

His voice didn't break.

But his jaw tightened.

"We weren't together again.

She wouldn't allow that.

She said she didn't trust that your father had stopped watching.

But she let me be Clara's father.

We had an arrangement.

Clara lived with her.

I had her on weekends and holidays.

It worked." He looked up.

"It worked until Evelyn got sick."

"What was it?"

"Cancer.

She fought it for two years." He said it simply, without softening it.

"She was very brave and very stubborn and she lost anyway."

The kitchen was quiet.

A clock ticked somewhere in the hall.

"She wrote me a letter too," Helena said.

"She said there were things about my father she couldn't put in writing.

That you knew the rest."

Thomas looked at her for a long moment.

"Yes," he said.

"Then tell me."

He stood up.

Crossed to the kitchen drawer and opened it.

He took out a brown envelope — thicker than the one Diane had given her, heavier — and set it on the table between them.

"Evelyn spent the last six months of her life putting this together," he said.

"Documents.

Records.

Dates." He sat back down.

"She said she wanted you to be able to see it.

Not just hear it.

See it."

Helena looked at the envelope.

She didn't touch it yet.

"How bad is it?" she said.

Thomas looked at her with something that was almost sorry.

"Your father didn't just threaten us," he said.

"There was a girl before Evelyn.

Another situation he handled the same way." He paused.

"Evelyn found her."