‘No,’ she admitted. ‘Maggie – this afternoon, Alan Nuttall. I felt really bad, I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sorry. I wanted to find a way to make it up to you so I went to Hurst Street and waited up the road to see if Tarryn was working. I was worried about her – we both were, weren’t we? – and … It’s a friend of hers who helped Becca get the job, she said, an Aussie. She’s the assistant manager of the hotel.’

‘Why did she do it – Becca? Did she say? Why the cloak and dagger, scaring her mother half to death like this?’

‘She said she felt trapped, or about to be. Get this: Valerie’s a shut-in.’

‘A shut-in?’ Maggie’s forehead corrugated.

‘Or was. An agoraphobic, or something like it.’

‘I know what a shut-in is.’

‘Everything frightens her, apparently. Until her jaunt to Harry’s, she hadn’t left the house since Becca left school. Four years. Becca was supporting them both. What she told Lucy wasn’t true: she didn’t get her job at The Spot to save to go travelling; she was struggling to make ends meet for the two of them on what she was earning at Hanley’s. Ironically, going away was the result.’

Maggie said nothing.

‘And it wasn’t just Valerie,’ said Robin, growing self-conscious under the intensity of her focus. ‘She felt like she was about to get trapped by her relationship with Harry, too. Not because of anything he did but because it was the real deal.’

Somewhere around Gloucester services, Robin had had another realization. She’d actually startled in her seat. ‘Remember she told us that Becca’s passport was still in the drawer?’ she said now. ‘Not true. She took it with her. Valerie knows nothing’s happened to Becca – that panic, when she called this morning after Shannon Harris? No disrespect to your FLO skills but it was an act. She knew all along that Becca had just done a runner.’

‘My god.’

‘She loves Becca, obviously, but Becca’s also the only person connecting her to the outside world. She needs her – she’s screwed without her.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘What a bloody mess.’

‘I know. But I said to Becca, maybe it’ll be for the best in the long run. Maybe her mum’ll be forced to sort herself out, get some help.’

Maggie took a slow breath, in and out. ‘Well, you did it,’ she said.

‘We did – I just got the last bit. We make a good team, you and me.’

‘No. Tonight, all this – it was you.’

‘Like I said earlier, I wanted to make it up to you. Atone.’

‘Atone.’ Maggie said the word slowly, as if she were trying the taste. ‘God, I don’t know – maybe there’s no helping you.’

‘What?’