I tried to imagine Alan, frantically trying to cover up his misdeeds: the body of a girl and a ransom unpaid. If he knew my father had evidence, it made sense to kill him. When Alan’s partner died, opportunity knocked, and he’d been able to bury his secrets.

‘Michael found Rebecca’s body.’ I decided to take a leap of faith, both in sharing this with Marcelo and assuming the second skeleton in the truck was Rebecca’s (but, seriously, who else’s was it going to be?). Marcelo’s eyes widened; I pushed on. ‘It’s in the back of his truck. It was the first thing he did when he got out, so if we assume that he’s been waiting three years to dig it up, we can also assume Alan told him where it was. The problem is: if my father had evidence on Rebecca’s murder, it wasn’t where her body was buried.’

‘Because she was buried after he was killed,’ Marcelo agreed. ‘So your father was trying to give his handler something else that night. Some other evidence. You think that’s what Alan was selling – Robert’s final message to his handler?’

‘Perhaps. But I can’t get my head around why Alan would sell Michael information about a murder he’d committed.’ It didn’t make sense without the answer to this puzzle, and I wasn’t sure I’d grasped it yet.

‘Unless Alan didn’t murder anyone, and was just protecting the person who did. Alan’s a policeman, remember – if he was indebted to someone, I’d wager they’re a dangerous sort.’

This fit what Michael had told me earlier in the Drying Room, that he thought Alan was selling somebody else out. It also brought Michael’s sentence into focus, a meagre three years because, in his own words, there were some people who would prefer Alan’s history not get an airing in open court. Things were clicking together. Reader, it has not escaped me that this scene is the ‘It Goes All The Way To The Top’ one.

Marcelo was watching me digest all of this, trying to figure out if I believed him. ‘Fast-forward to three years ago. Alan’s life is on the skids, he’s in and out of jail and barely scraping by. Maybe he thinks that Rebecca McAuley was where it all started going wrong, and he decides he’s ready to bring someone down. And so he comes back to where it all started, luring Michael in with promises of revelations about his father.’

‘I can see why he didn’t choose me.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not one for family history. Which is why I’m the only one Michael trusts. I was willing to testify in court against him, which showed that I didn’t know enough to be scared, which apparently I should have been. That earned me trust.’