Then, at last, he seems to give in. “OK,” he says.

“OK what?” I say warily.

“I’ll tell you what your dad’s doing.”

“So you do know?”

“He was here.” He gestures to a paint-stained sofa. “Sit. I’ll tell you what I know. You want some iced tea?”

—

Even though Raymond seems to have decided to play along, we don’t relinquish the pottery, just in case. We sit on the sofa, clutching the two sculptures on our laps, while Raymond pours iced tea from a jug, then arranges himself on a chair opposite.

“Well, it comes down to the money,” he says, as though this is perfectly obvious, and takes a thoughtful sip from his glass.

“What money?”

“Brent signing away his rights. I mean, that’s years ago now. But your dad only just found out, thought it was wrong. Wanted to do something about it. I said, ‘That’s their business.’ But your dad got the bit between his teeth. He and Corey always did have that…I don’t know what you’d call it. A spark. Corey wound your dad up. Anyway, so that’s what he’s up to.”

Raymond leans back as though all is now perfectly clear and takes another sip of iced tea. I stare at him, nonplussed.

“What?” I say at last. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, you know,” says Raymond with a shrug. “The spring. The money.” He eyes me closely. “I’m talking about the money.”

“What money?” I retort with a flash of irritation. “You keep talking about money, but I don’t know what you’re going on about.”

“You don’t know?” Raymond gives a little whoop. “He never told you?”

“No!”

“Oh, Graham. Not so holier-than-thou now.” He gives a sudden guffaw.

“What are you talking about?” I’m exploding with frustration.

“OK.” Raymond flashes me a grin. “Now, you pay attention. This is a good story. We all first met in New York, the four of us, waiting tables. Corey and Brent were science grads. I was a design postgrad. Your dad was…I don’t remember what your dad was. We were young men, waiting to see where life would take us, and we decided to go west. Have an adventure.”

“Right.” I nod politely, though my heart is sinking. People say, “This is a good story,” and what they mean is, I’m going to share a random slice of my life with you now, and you have to look fascinated. The truth is, I’ve heard this story a million times from Dad. Next we’ll be on to the sunsets and the shimmering heat and that time they spent the night in the desert. “So, where does money come into it?”

“I’ll get to that.” Raymond lifts a hand. “Off we went, traveling around the West. And we talked. A lot. No cell phones back then, remember. No Wi-Fi. Just music and conversation. In bars, sitting around the campfire, on the road…wherever. Corey and Brent used to spitball ideas. They used to talk about setting up a research company together. Bright boys, both of them. Corey had money too. And looks. He was what you might call the alpha male.”

“Right,” I say dubiously, remembering the tanned, weird-looking guy we met in Las Vegas.

“Then one night…” Raymond pauses for effect. “They came up with the spring.” A little smile dances around his mouth. “Ever heard of a balloon spring?”

Something is ringing in my mind, and I sit up straighter. “Hang on. Corey invented a spring, didn’t he?”

“Corey and Brent invented a spring,” corrects Raymond.

“But…” I stare at him. “I saw articles about that spring online. There’s no mention of Brent anywhere.”

“Guess Corey had him airbrushed out of the story.” Raymond gives a wry chuckle. “But Brent helped invent it, all right. They came up with the first notion together one night by the fire. Sketched out the concept right then and there. It was four years before it was actually developed, but that’s where it all began. Corey, Brent, your dad, and me. We all had a stake in it.”

“Wait, what?” I stare at him. “My dad had a stake in it?”

“Well, I say ‘stake.’ ” Raymond begins to chuckle again. “He didn’t put any money in. It was more like a ‘contribution.’ ”

“Contribution? What contribution?”

I’m half-hoping to hear that my dad was the one who had the blinding insight that kick-started the whole invention.

“Your dad gave them the pad of paper they wrote it on.”

“Paper,” I say, deflated. “Is that all?”

“It was enough! They joked about it. Corey and Brent were desperate for something to write on. Your dad had a big sketchbook. He said, ‘Well, if I give you my sketchbook, I want in on this,’ and Corey said, ‘You got it, Graham. You’ve got one percent.’ I mean, we were all joking. I helped them sketch out their ideas. It passed a few evenings.” Raymond takes another glug of iced tea. “But then they made the spring. The money started pouring in. And as far as I know, Corey stuck to his word. Sent your dad a dividend every year.”

I’m dumbstruck. My dad has a stake in a spring? OK, I take it back. This is a pretty good story.

“I had an inheritance around that time,” Raymond adds, “so I put some real money in. Set me up for life.”

“But how can a spring make so much money?” says Suze skeptically. “It’s just a piece of curly wire.”

That’s exactly what I was thinking, only I didn’t want to say it.

“It’s a kind of folding spring.” Raymond shrugs. “Useful thing. You’ll find it in firearms, computer keyboards…you name it. Corey and Brent were smart. Corey had a gun; he did some hunting. They’d take it apart in the evenings, play around with the spring-loading mechanism. It gave them ideas. You know how it is.”

No, I don’t know how it is. I’ve sat around loads of times with Suze, and we’ve taken plenty of things apart, like makeup kits. But I’ve never invented a new spring.

I suddenly understand why Dad was always so interested in my physics report. And why he used to say, “Becky love, why not go into engineering?” and “Science is not boring, young lady!”

Hmm. Maybe he had a point. Now I half-wish I’d listened.

Ooh, maybe we can train up Minnie in science and she’ll invent an even more advanced spring and we’ll all be squillionaires. (When she’s not winning the Olympics at show jumping, of course.)

“When they got back from the trip,” Raymond is saying, “they hired a lab and developed it properly. Four years later they launched it. At least, Corey launched it.”

“Only Corey? Why not Brent?”

Raymond’s face kind of closes up. “Brent bowed out after three years,” he says shortly.

“Three years? What do you mean, before it launched? So he didn’t make any money?”

“Not to speak of. He pretty much just signed away his rights.”

“But why on earth would he do that?” I demand in horror. “He must have known it had huge potential.”

“I guess Corey told him—” Raymond breaks off, then says with sudden heat, “It’s in the past. It’s between the two of them.”

“Corey told him what?” I narrow my eyes. “What, Raymond?”

“What?” echoes Suze, and Raymond makes an angry, huffing sound.

“Corey had taken over the business side. Maybe he gave Brent the wrong impression. Told him the investors weren’t coming forward, told him it wasn’t developing commercially, told him it was going to be expensive to take it to the next level. So Brent sold out for…well. Pretty much nothing.”

I stare at Raymond in utter dismay.

“Corey conned Brent? He should go to prison!”

Into my head flashes an image of Corey’s Las Vegas palace, followed by Brent’s trailer. It’s so unfair. I can’t bear it.

“Corey didn’t break any law as far as I know,” Raymond replies stolidly. “He was right in some of what he said—it wasn’t a sure thing. It did need investment. Brent should have looked into it. Shoulda been smarter.”

“You know Brent’s been living in a trailer?” I say accusingly. “You know he’s been evicted from a trailer?”

“If Brent was fool enough to fall for Corey’s patter, that’s his problem,” returns Raymond aggressively. “I believe he attempted legal action, but the facts didn’t stack up strongly enough. Corey’s word against Brent’s, see.”

“But that’s so wrong! Brent helped invent it! It’s made millions!”

“Whatever.” Raymond’s face closes up even further, and I feel a surge of contempt for him.

“You just don’t want to know, do you?” I say scathingly. “No wonder you hide yourself away from the world.”

“If Brent’s so talented,” puts in Suze, “why didn’t he make something of himself anyway?”

“Brent was never the strongest character,” says Raymond. “I think it ate him up, seeing Corey succeed. He drank, married too many times—that’ll burn through your money.”

“No wonder it ate him up!” I almost yell. “It would eat anyone up! So, you think this is OK, do you? One of your friends conned the other and you don’t want to do anything about it?”

“I don’t get involved,” says Raymond, his face expressionless. “We lost touch.”

“But you still take the money,” I say pointedly.

“So does your dad,” returns Raymond, equally pointedly. “He still gets his dividend, as far as I know.”

My racing thoughts are brought up short. My dad. The money. The dividend. Why did he never tell us about this? He told us everything else about that holiday, over and over. Why did he leave out the best bit?

I’m sure Mum doesn’t know any of this. She would have said. Which means…He’s been keeping it secret, all these years?

I feel a bit hot. My dad is the most open, straightforward person in the world. Why would he keep a massive great secret like this?

“Bex, didn’t you know anything about it?” says Suze in a low voice.

“Nothing.”

“Why would your dad hide something like that?”