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‘Listen to me, Fliss …’ her father – or, the man she had always thought was her father – was saying, his tone insistent. ‘She had got herself involved with some fellow – married, I believe – and when she told him she was pregnant, he didn’t want to know. Well, that’s not entirely true. He said he’d always provide for her and the baby. Because she was insistent she was keeping you, Fliss. Nothing could have made her part with you.

‘I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her. She lit up a room just by walking into it. She was vivacious, confident – everything I wasn’t. I couldn’t believe she had chosen me. In hindsight, I was a safe harbour after everything she had been through.

‘I suggested we move out of London and she jumped at the chance. I’d already realised that the fast-paced life wasn’t for me, and was thinking of moving to the coast. It reminded me of where I’d grown up. I think it was … an adjustment, for Jacqui, but it was what she needed right then.’

Fliss had always wondered how her vibrant, ambitious mother had come to move away from the capital to Margate, and now she knew. Because of her. She’d always known that she had put a stop to her mother’s dreams, but she had never realised quite how drastically. Now, though, she sat quietly, her face betraying nothing of her feelings, as John continued his story. Her story.

‘We got married – a quick, registry office do with two witnesses from the street. We were so young and giddy.’ Fliss recalled the sole wedding photo of her parents, taken by a kindly passer-by outside Marylebone Town Hall. ‘And then we moved here, bought this little terraced house and worked like demons to get it painted and ready for you … The day you were born was the happiest of my life, Fliss. Honestly, I never thought of you as anything other than mine.’

‘But I wasn’t!’ Fliss burst out. ‘I don’t even know who I am anymore.’

‘You’re my daughter,’ John said fiercely. ‘Same as if you were my own flesh and blood. It’s my name on your birth certificate, not whoever that scumbag was that abandoned you. We were a proper family, Fliss.’

She didn’t know what to say. She had so many questions, so many emotions. Above all she felt angry and betrayed; her parents had lied to her for her whole life. But her mother was no longer here for her to vent her anger at, and it wouldn’t be fair to scream and shout at John, especially in his current state.

And wasn’t it true what John had said? He had loved her – did love her – as though she was his own, couldn’t have done more for her. All of her happy childhood memories were unchanged. But would they be forever tainted from the news she had just received?

One question stood out louder than the others, pushing its way to the front of her mind. ‘D-do you know who he was?’ She didn’t need to specify who.

John looked down at his hands, folded limply in his lap, and shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Did …’ Fliss hated herself for asking this question. ‘Did Mum?’

‘Oh yes,’ said John, sounding shocked. ‘Of course! But she would never tell me. Oh, it caused arguments between us. I didn’t like that she felt she couldn’t trust me. That there was a secret between us. And then, when your mother died, it all came out that … ’

‘That what?’ Fliss’s head shot up, her eyes widening as she sensed yet another revelation to come.

‘There was a lump sum set aside, in a trust. The money that sent you to that fancy school. It came from him.’

Fliss’s heart was racing, her breathing shallow. Once again, she was overwhelmed by the feeling that everything she had ever known was untrue, the rug well and truly pulled out from under her feet. Her memories of the past were slipping through her hands like quicksand, impossible to know what was true and what was built on a lie.

‘Then you must know something!’ Fliss said desperately. ‘There must be a letter, or the bank account the money came from?’ she suggested, clutching at ideas.

John shook his head. ‘Your mother signed a confidentiality agreement. It was all handled by lawyers.’

‘Which lawyers?’

‘Some fancy firm in London. I looked them up once. Swanky offices in Chancery Lane. Knight Miller, I think they were called.’

Fliss turned the name over in her mind, trying to recall if she had ever heard it before. A distant memory tugged at the edges of her mind, but she couldn’t seem to recall it.

‘Isn’t there anything you can tell me about him?’ she pleaded.

John’s reaction surprised her; he turned on her in anger. ‘Why do you care about him so much? I’m the one who raised you, who loved you, who did his best to give you everything you ever wanted. All he did was leave your mum in the lurch and chuck a bit of money her way.’ He sank back in his armchair, breathing heavily after the outburst.

The sight of him like that forced Fliss to control herself. She knew that what he said was true. ‘Look … Dad … I love you. You know that, and that won’t change. Everything you’ve said is true. You raised me, and you’ll always be my father. But you have to understand, until an hour ago, I didn’t know any of this. Now I find out that you have cancer, and you’re not my real – no, my birth father …’

‘I know, Fliss … Of course, I understand.’ John reached across, clasping her hand in his bony one. ‘Let me make us both a nice cup of tea?’ He started to stand up, but the action set him coughing uncontrollably and he threw himself back into the seat of the chair.

When he had calmed down, his eyes watering and his breathing laboured, Fliss said gently, ‘I’ll go and make the tea.’

She stood up to go to the kitchen, needing a moment to herself to process everything. In truth, there was part of her that wanted to run away, to grab her bag and escape back to London and pretend that they had never had this conversation.

As though he had read her mind, her father called out, ‘You will stay tonight, won’t you, Fliss?’

‘Of course I will, Dad,’ she called back as she filled the kettle with water, a tear sliding down her cheek.

When she brought back the mugs and tea things on a tray, she had dried her tears and was determined to put a brave face on things. If her father could do it, then so could she. She was surprised to see that he was holding a small box in his hands.