‘My story.’ Reave leaned back in his chair and looked at the wall. The prison guards shifted; one of them crossed his arms over his chest. They both looked bored. ‘I was a poor country kid. My father did odd jobs for people, some of them less than legal, I reckon. My mother was an angry woman. She didn’t like me much, but then I don’t think she liked anyone much. She was cold and turned inwards on herself, wouldn’t speak for days sometimes. I remember her stoking the stove up until it was fair spitting sparks, and she would sit by it for hours, until one side of her was all red and mottled, just staring at nothing. When she was angry with me, she would shut me away.’ He cleared his throat and met Heather’s eyes again. ‘When a doe rabbit has kits, Heather, she has to feel completely safe. If she doesn’t feel safe, lass, if she feels that there is a predator in the woods, do you know what she’ll do?’

Heather shook her head.

‘She’ll eat her young to save herself. A kit is all scent and hot blood, Heather – it doesn’t know that it’s like a beacon for hungry things. It’ll lead the predator to the mother rabbit, and she can’t have that. She’ll eat her own babies to save herself.’

The prison guard had uncrossed his arms, and was now staring at Reave with a look of open dislike.

‘I—’

‘It sounds monstrous, but some things are just not born with maternal instincts. Some things are born scared, rabbits being one of them.’

‘Was there a predator in your house growing up, Michael?’

He smiled then, a really genuine smile, and she found herself recoiling in confusion, because he looked vulnerable. He looked lost.

‘No one cares about my story, lass. No one cares about poor kids growing up in dirty houses that are never warm, or about what they have to do to live. What they have to do to get out. Not even you, girl.’

I do care. The words were on her lips for the briefest second, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say them. Those words might be the key to getting the rest of his story, yet she found she could only think of the photos of the girls that were for ever linked to his name. I do care, she thought. I care about them and my mother. I care about Sharon Barlow and Elizabeth Bunyon.

‘Was Fiddler’s Mill your way out, Mr Reave? Is that where you escaped to?’

He said nothing to that.