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‘Clara, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable but, is it possible there was more than one candidate?’
    She scowled angrily, but couldn’t keep it up. Nodding sadly she told him, ‘I had a boyfriend but I started seeing someone else before … before we split properly. It was a mistake, a stupid mistake. And I was almost certain … almost certain it wasn’t my boyfriend that got me pregnant. He … We … we were always so careful and, when he knew I’d been two-timing him, there was one hell of a row and …’ She gestured helplessly. ‘It was all such a bloody mess. I was seventeen. Rob’s age. Seems it runs in the family, doesn’t it? Making a bloody mess of things?’
    Rob’s mess was somewhat bigger and more complicated, Alec thought. Then he wondered if it was. Did starting a new life bring with it as much fall-out in its own way as ending one? Then it seemed somehow stupid to be making such a comparison, especially as that once new life had been ended so prematurely too.
    â€˜So, you managed on your own,’ Alec said.
    â€˜So I managed on my own. My sister was the only one wanted to know me after that. I got a place in a hostel for single mothers, fended off the social workers that wanted me to adopt, and carried on at school. I got my exams and got a job, found a child minder close by, lived in a horrid little flat, then a slightly better one and finally ended up here ten years ago. This was nice, this was home. This was where Rob did most of his growing up. This is …’ She raised a clenched fist to her mouth, pressed it hard against her lips as though that would prevent the tears, closed her eyes.
    Alec waited. Finally as she seemed to have recovered some measure of control he pursued his initial question again. ‘You had no contact with either of them? Did either of the men know they might have fathered a child?’
    She shrugged. ‘I suppose they both knew, but I never
told
either of them they were the father. I took a mental step back and looked at them both and to be honest I suddenly could not understand what I’d seen in either. They weren’t men, they were boys, not much older than me but much
much
younger in the way they acted. Though I suppose I was as bad. It was only … only when I had to face up to the real stuff, having a baby, being on my own, having no one to back me up and this little thing screaming for attention twenty-four hours a day. I thought about them and I thought, do I want either one of them around? And the answer was hell no. Neither was worth a damn.’
    â€˜Their families,’ Alec asked. ‘Did neither of the families try to get in touch? Rob must have had grandparents …’
    Fiercely, she shook her head. ‘Once,’ she said. ‘Once, my boyfriend’s mother phoned me and she called me a slag. Mum defended me, but I knew she felt the same way. She told the woman it probably wasn’t her son’s anyway so what was she so bothered about and then she swore at her.’ She laughed at the memory, laughter that choked and hurt in the throat. ‘I never ever heard my mum swear before or since for that matter. It sounded so strange …’
    â€˜And you never told Rob either of their names? Did Rob know? Did Rob know there were two possibilities?’
    Clara sat down again on Rob’s bed. She fingered the shirt Alec had laid there, fingers running along the button band, then, absently, fastening the small blue buttons. ‘He asked me,’ she said. ‘I told him his dad had gone away and I didn’t know where.’
    â€˜And did you give him a name?’
    â€˜I gave him a name. I told him his dad’s name was Andrew.’
    â€˜And was it? Clara, you have to tell me who they might have been.’
    She shook her head. ‘I don’t
have
to tell you anything,’ she said. ‘The man who died, he was a