‘Well… I’m just pointing out the obvious,’ Jeff gets up from the couch. ‘Looking at the facts, Becca.’

‘But he could be?’ I say, my words sounding slurred.

‘I could be, you could be,’ Jeff says.

After hours of drinking the alcohol has diluted my fear. The magnitude of my identity crisis has reduced to a simmer in my head. I can’t think straight. This is far too much shit for one person to shovel.

‘Jeff, what should I do?’

He sits beside me on the arm of the couch. ‘You’re tired, Becca. Maybe you should sleep, we can talk about this in the morning.’

Talk about it in the morning? Does the guy think I want to discuss what we’ll have for dinner tomorrow? I know he thinks I’ve drunk too much wine, I saw him lift the bottle a few minutes ago and check what was left, but I can’t switch off, not like that. My world has been—fuck, my cell is ringing.

‘Can you get that for me? It’s in my jacket.’

‘You’re not gonna like this, Becca,’ he says, holding out my cell.

Taking the cell, I look at the name flashing on the screen. It’s blurred at first, forcing me to squint and focus. The ring seems to be getting louder and louder but I’m not answering it. The last person I need in my head now is Detective Turner.

‘You’re going to have to speak to her at some point,’ Jeff says.

‘I know, I know, but I’m not talking to her now.’

‘Maybe you should go to the precinct first thing tomorrow and tell her what you know.’

My head is spinning. I can’t do that; if I do, I implicate Danny. But what if he did kill Katie Collins? Jeff has a point: if Dad doesn’t know about the abduction, Danny is the only one who had something to lose, everything to lose. And what about Bert?

‘Bert had something to lose too, he covered the whole thing up as well. He knew about the abduction.’ Bert’s strange relationship with me becomes more understandable now. The man knew all along I had been abducted and had tried in his own way to make it up to me. Spoiling me, soothing his guilt.

‘I doubt it was Bert, Becca.’

He’s right, it’s highly unlikely an old man made his way to Treehill Park late on Saturday night to kill someone, especially with Edith dying by his side. No, it couldn’t have been Bert.

‘But what do I tell Turner? I can’t tell her Danny knew about this.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You can tell her you figured it out yourself, from the blood tests and seeing the coat in the photo in Algiers. What your Mom said. Stuff like that.’

‘But…’