‘Hell!’ he said softly.

‘What did he mean?’

‘My wife left us two years ago.’

‘Us?’

‘She left us both. There was another man. She went to live with him in Switzerland.’

‘She didn’t take her son with her?’ Evie asked, aghast. ‘Or did you stop her?’

‘I wouldn’t have stopped her if she’d wanted him, but I don’t think she even thought of it,’ he said in a soft voice that had a hint of savagery.

Evie rubbed her hand over her eyes.

‘I just don’t understand how any mother can do that,’ she said distractedly. ‘To leave a man-well, it happens if the relationship isn’t working. But to abandon a defenceless child-’

‘It’s the crime of crimes,’ Justin said sombrely. ‘It’s unnatural, unforgivable-’

He stopped. Evie stared at him, alerted by something in his voice that went beyond anger. Hatred.

‘That poor kid,’ Evie breathed. ‘Did she stay in touch?’

‘She wrote to him, telephoned sometimes. There were presents at Christmas and birthdays. But he wasn’t invited to visit her. The new boyfriend didn’t want him, you see, and he was much more important to her than her son.’

Again there was that bitter edge of something that was more than anger. More like pain.

‘It must have devastated him,’ she murmured. ‘How does he cope?’

‘He’s brave and strong,’ Justin said unexpectedly. ‘And he knows what the world is like now.’

‘He’s too young to learn that side of the world,’ Evie said quickly.

He gave a mirthless laugh.

‘Is there a proper age for a boy to learn that his mother doesn’t want him?’

‘No, of course not,’ she agreed.

‘Any age is too young, but it happens when it happens, ten, nine-seven.’

As he said ‘seven’ his voice changed, making her look at him. But he didn’t seem to notice her. He was talking almost to himself.

‘And then the whole world becomes unreal, because it can’t have happened, yet it has happened. All the reference points are gone and there’s only chaos. Disbelief becomes a refuge when there’s nothing else.’