She was in the house for seven of the nine.

In her room, four times, with the door shut, because she had come home and gone straight in.

And twice she was in the kitchen when the telephone rang and she watched her mother pick it up and say she was out.

And she did not say anything.

I asked her why not and she looked out of the car window for about nine seconds and then she said the thing that is the actual subject of this whole account, and which I did not understand on the twelfth of September and understand completely now.

She said: “Because what was I going to do, Dad?