‘Well, that’s nonsense,’ Glenda snapped back, as if rising to bait. She clutched her hand and winced again, but a little pain wouldn’t stop her defending a man she clearly idolised. ‘I was postmistress in Combadeen for forty years and I can tell you that your father wrote to you every single week, from the day your mother took you away with that awful American. Big fat letters, they were, crammed with everything he could think of. He posted them every Friday. And you know what? Nearly every one of them came back, marked returned to sender. But he still kept sending them. Then about twenty years ago, he went over to the States. “I’m going to find him, Glenda,” he told me, but three months later he came back. He looked dreadful-and he hadn’t seen you. Your mother wouldn’t let him near. Oh, that woman…’

Glenda’s cheeks were pink with indignation, anger building and building. ‘Not that it’s any of my business,’ she said, ‘but to hear you say there was no contact… It makes my blood boil that your mother wouldn’t let him keep in touch. But then he met Hazel. Even then, he and Hazel couldn’t have children and I know he missed you every day of his life.’

There was a deathly silence round the table. Jake looked as if he’d gone into shock, Tori thought. His face was a mixture of conflicting emotions. Maybe she should reach out and touch him. Maybe she could reassure him.

Maybe she should just keep out of what was clearly not her business.

‘You said he met Hazel twenty years ago,’ Jake said, tightly now, angry and disbelieving. ‘Surely you meant thirty. Or more.’

‘Oh, no, dear,’ Glenda said. ‘That was why they couldn’t have children. Hazel was in her early forties when they met. Of course they hoped, but it didn’t happen.’