But what do you say in situations like this? I’m a novice. He doesn’t seem to register my inappropriateness and I don’t think finding the killer is going to bring any peace. The woman is dead. Her life has come to an end without her finding her sister and that’s a pity, a big pity, especially when there’s a new Louise starting out in life without her mommy.

The child must be asleep now, the crying has ceased. Moving towards the door, Jeff looks at me and says, ‘All done here?’

I feel like I came all this distance for nothing. Even though I now know why Katie Collins was looking for me, I’m a bit disappointed. I don’t understand why I feel like this. Did I want to be the sister she was looking for? But I was just another photo, another prospect, another failure in her quest for an answer that she never got.

Zipping up my jacket I nod at Jeff. It’s over, we can go home now. I’ll put all this behind me.

I’m about to step through the door when I turn and look at a picture on the wall. At first it doesn’t register with me; it’s just a family picture. Two young girls with their mother. The woman is holding a baby in her arms. The older child is standing by her side near the open door of a trailer.

My heart shrinks. The baby is wearing a pink coat. With a button missing.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

‘Come on, Becca. There must have been thousands of pink baby coats.’

Jeff is trying to calm me as I sit on a wall down the street from Thomas Collins’ house. I’m so weak I can’t stand up.

‘Surely every little girl has a pink coat,’ he continues, but his words hold no comfort. I know that coat, I have seen that coat, I have held that coat. Bert Ryan gave that coat to Danny for a reason. Bert Ryan knows something.

I can’t reply to Jeff, can’t seem to be able to digest this finding. It’s like a fishbone stuck in the back of my throat preventing me from concentrating on anything else. What am I to do? How do I find out?

The first thing I need to do is call into Bert and ask him where he got the coat and why he gave it to Danny. That is the first thing I will do. Lifting my head, I look at Jeff’s concerned face. He’s as confused as I am.

Who is the baby in the pink coat? The missing Louise? And why is that pink coat in Danny’s house right now? Is the baby in the pink coat me? Did Katie Collins find her sister? From where I’m standing it’s looking that way.