‘But Alan said he knew who I was,’ Jeremy continued. ‘He said he’d kept an eye on me, that he’d looked after me when I was younger. He said he was supposed to kill me, but instead he let me go and I should be grateful for that. He knew the Williamses had money, and he wanted it for the photos that he said would help me find peace. But I told him to get lost, and the next thing I saw he’s on the news. Murdered.’

‘So you confronted the Williamses?’ I prompted.

‘These people that dared to say they were my family, they kept lying. They just kept lying, saying that they didn’t know who I was! I got angry and . . . I didn’t mean to . . . I found a way to make them feel what I felt’—he pulled at his collar, at his neck—‘and I just can’t breathe when I’m upset.’

‘And Alison? You tracked her down because of her involvement in the McAuleys’ case. How did you know about that?’

‘No. I tracked her down because I wanted to ask her some questions, to find out more about Alan. I understood she’d been his superior.’ The collar was getting a workout now. ‘I didn’t realise this was all her fault. She made my father, my real father, keep doing something that would get him killed, just to cover her own arse. I just wanted to ask her some questions. Honestly.’ He rubbed his forehead, ran his tongue around his teeth.

I could tell it was taking a conscious effort to disassociate himself from his actions, but that he believed his hand had been forced. It can’t have been that forced, seeing as he’d brought all the gear along with him to reconstruct an ancient torture technique, but I wasn’t going to correct him.

‘You all understand that, right?’ There was something sinister underneath his words, like he was appealing to us as equals.

‘If you’re desperate to belong, we’re all here.’ I spread my arms. ‘Why kill Michael?’

‘Michael was supposed to be like me.’ He said it mournfully. ‘I mean, one day there’s a man I don’t know telling me I’m a Cunningham, and then I’m seeing in the news that a Cunningham has killed him. Then I start researching Robert, and he killed that Brian Clarke, and I started to think that maybe I wasn’t so alone after all, that I wasn’t the only one who felt . . . different.’

‘That was when you reached out to Michael?’