Oh God, she’s stopped talking. Tess registered with a start that it was her turn to speak.

‘Busy,’ she said finally. ‘You sure are busy.’ She forced her lips into something she hoped resembled a smile.

‘See you at the pirate party!’ Cecilia called out to Liam, who turned from drilling his tree to look at her with that funny, inscrutable, masculine expression he sometimes got, an expression that painfully reminded Tess of Will.

Cecilia lifted her hand like a claw. ‘Aha, me hearties!’

Liam grinned, as if he couldn’t help himself, and Tess knew she’d be taking him to the pirate party whatever it cost her.

‘Oh my,’ said Tess’s mother when Cecilia was out of earshot. ‘Her mother is exactly the same. Very nice, but exhausting. I always feel like I need a cup of tea and a lie-down after talking with her.’

‘What’s the story with this Rachel Crowley?’ asked Tess as they headed towards the school office, she and Liam pushing one handle each of the wheelchair.

Her mother grimaced. ‘Do you remember the name Janie Crowley?’

‘Not the girl they found with the rosary beads –’

‘That’s the one. She was Rachel’s daughter.’

Rachel could tell that Lucy O’Leary and her daughter were both thinking about Janie while they enrolled Tess’s little boy in St Angela’s. They were both being just a little chattier than was obviously natural for them. Tess couldn’t quite meet Rachel’s eyes, while Lucy was doing that tender-eyed, tilted head thing that so many women of a certain age did when they talked to Rachel, as if they were visiting her in a nursing home.

When Lucy asked if the photo on Rachel’s desk was her grandson, both she and Tess went quite over the top with compliments, not that it wasn’t a beautiful photo of Jacob of course, but you didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that what they really meant was: We know your daughter was murdered all those years ago, but does this little boy make up for it? Please let him make up for it so we can stop feeling so strange and uncomfortable!

‘I look after him two days a week,’ Rachel told them, her eyes on the computer screen while she printed off some paperwork for Tess. ‘But not for much longer. I found out last night that his parents are taking him off to New York for two years.’ Her voice cracked without her permission and she cleared her throat irritably.

She waited for the reaction she’d been getting from everyone that morning: ‘How exciting for them!’ ‘What an opportunity!’ ‘Will you go for a visit?’

‘Well that just takes the cake!’ exploded Lucy and she banged her elbows on the arms of her wheelchair, like a cranky toddler. Her daughter, who had been busy filling in a form, looked up and frowned. Tess was one of those plain-looking women with a short boyish haircut and strong austere features who sometimes stun you with a flash of raw beauty. Her little boy, who looked a lot like Tess, except for his strange gold-coloured eyes, also turned to stare at his grandmother.

Lucy rubbed her elbows. ‘Of course I’m sure it’s exciting for your son and daughter-in-law. It’s just that after all you’ve been through, losing Janie like – the way you did, and then your husband, I’m so sorry, I can’t actually remember his name, but I know you lost him too – well, this just doesn’t seem fair.’

By the time she finished talking her cheeks were crimson. Rachel could tell she was horrified at herself. People were always worrying that they’d inadvertently reminded her of her daughter’s death, as if it were something that slipped her mind.

‘I’m so sorry, Rachel, I shouldn’t have –’ Poor Lucy looked distraught.

Rachel waved a hand to swat away her apologies. ‘Don’t be sorry. Thank you. It does take the cake, actually. I’ll miss him terribly.’

‘Well, now, who have we here?’

Rachel’s boss, Trudy Applebee, the school principal, floated into the room, one of her trademark crocheted shawls slipping off her bony shoulders, strands of grey frizzy hair floating around her face, a smudge of red paint on her left cheekbone. She’d probably been on the floor painting with the kindergarten children. True to form, Trudy looked straight past Lucy and Tess O’Leary to the little boy, Liam. She had no interest in grown-ups, and this would one day be her downfall. Rachel had seen three school principals come and go since she’d been secretary, and in her experience it wasn’t possible to run a school while ignoring the grown-ups. It was a political role.

Also, Trudy didn’t seem to be quite Catholic enough for the job. Not that she went around breaking the commandments, but she had an unpious, sparkly-eyed expression on her face during mass. Before she died, Sister Ursula (whose funeral Rachel had just boycotted, because she’d never forgiven her for hitting Janie with a feather duster) had probably written to the Vatican to complain about her.

‘This is the boy I mentioned earlier,’ said Rachel. ‘Liam Curtis. He’s enrolling in Year 1.’

‘Of course, of course. Welcome to St Angela’s, Liam! I was just thinking as I walked up the stairs that today I was meeting someone whose name begins with the letter L, which happens to be one of my favourite letters. Tell me, Liam, out of these three things, which do you like best?’ She folded back her fingers with each item. ‘Dinosaurs? Aliens? Superheroes?’

Liam considered the question gravely.

‘He quite likes dino’’ began Lucy O’Leary. Tess put her hand on her mother’s arm.

‘Aliens,’ said Liam finally.

‘Aliens!’ Trudy nodded. ‘Well, I will be keeping that in mind, Liam Curtis, and this is your mum, and your grandmother, I’m guessing?’

‘Yes, indeed, I’m –’ began Lucy O’Leary.

‘Lovely to meet you both,’ Trudy smiled vaguely in their general direction. She turned back to Liam. ‘When are you starting with us, Liam? Tomorrow?’

‘No!’ Tess looked alarmed. ‘Not until after Easter.’

‘Oh, live a little, I say! Jump right in while the iron is hot!’ said Trudy. ‘Do you like Easter eggs, Liam?’

‘Yes,’ said Liam adamantly.

‘Because we’re planning a gigantic Easter egg hunt tomorrow.’

‘I’m supergood at Easter egg hunts,’ said Liam.