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although the name was vaguely familiar and comforting, like finding an old teddy bear you’d forgotten you once had.
    Florence looked momentarily horrified and put her hand to her mouth, as if to cram the name back in, but it was too late. Both her children were looking up at her expectantly, memories of the tall, lanky, dark-haired man who’d been such a constant presence in their childhood suddenly crowding into their heads… She sighed.
    â€œLou was Great-Aunt Irene’s son. Your father’s cousin,” said Florence, reluctantly. “He was around quite a bit when you were younger, but it’s been a long time…”
    â€œAren’t there some photos of him in the old album?” said Cat suddenly. “You know, the blue one – where is it? We haven’t had it out for years!”
    â€œIt’s in that grey box in my room,” said Florence,and then added, as if making the best of it, “Why don’t you go and get it and we can have a look through the pictures.”
    When Cat came back down with the tatty blue photo album, Florence turned to the early photos, showing Simon as a baby, with his dad holding him up proudly, and two-year-old Cat looking utterly uninterested in the new arrival.
    â€œThere,” said his mum, pointing her finger at a shadowy figure standing behind his dad. “That’s Lou. He never did like being photographed, I only got that one because he wasn’t paying attention.”
    Uncle Lou looked a little like a scarecrow, Simon thought – all long arms and legs and a shock of messy dark hair, looking slightly away from the camera, and half hidden by his dad. His dad was a much stockier figure, with strong arms and very fair curly hair, and a wide smile. Cat had inherited their dad’s bright hair and blue eyes, he thought. His own was dark and straight, like Mum’s. Like Uncle Lou’s.
    â€œHe and your dad were cousins, but they seemed more like brothers,” said Mum, smiling at the photo. “Irene took your dad in after his parents died, so they more or less grew up together.Lou was a total computer geek, used to write games. Actually, that old game you like playing on your DS, Simon, the one with all the knights – that was one of his, originally.”
    â€œ Castle Quest ?” said Simon, surprised. “He wrote it?”
    â€œWell, he wrote the prototype. He’d gone off travelling by the time it was made. But it was mostly his characters and his ideas.”
    â€œIt’s funny,” said Cat, frowning. “I remember Uncle Lou now, but I’d hardly thought of him till you said his name.”
    She turned a few pages of the album, past the point where their father suddenly faded out of the family snaps, to one of her standing proudly in her new school uniform next to a pair of very long legs. “Look – there’s one here – isn’t that Uncle Lou?”
    Florence nodded, and turned the page to another photo of Simon and Cat side by side on a bench, eating ice-cream.
    â€œLook, that’s when we went to Wareham!” she said brightly.
    â€œI remember,” said Simon, turning the page back. “I remember him taking me to school whenI first started, too. I don’t know why I’d forgotten. But where did he go? And if he was Great-Aunt Irene’s son, how come she left us the house, and not him?”
    Florence sighed. “Well, she always said the house was meant to go to your dad, so after he died she said we should have it. There was some heirloom or other for Lou. But I don’t know if she managed to pass it on to him – he disappeared years ago and he didn’t come back for the funeral. I’m not sure she really knew how to get hold of him, they hadn’t spoken in ages.”
    â€œSo what happened to him?” said Cat, curious. “Why did he disappear?”
    Florence’s expression suddenly turned rather vague.