If this is true, it means Hope didn’t deliberately send us off-track when she gave us the DNA sample.

‘Do you have to tell her?’ Gabriela adds.

‘Not exactly,’ Thistle says. ‘But now that we’ve found your husband’s remains, there are several ways she might find out. It might be a good idea to tell her yourself.’

‘I can’t,’ Gabriela said. ‘She adored Kenneth. It would destroy her to find out she wasn’t his. And she would never forgive me.’

That may be true. But I can’t imagine that Hope would be destroyed. Since the suicide attempt, she’s become stronger than her mother realises.

‘If he raised her,’ Thistle says, ‘she was his. Like you said.’ I bring in the tea on a tray I found, the sugar spoon balanced on the edge of a saucer like a seesaw. Gabriela picks up her mug and sniffs it. The aroma seems to wake her up, like smelling salts. Her eyes brighten a little, her spine straightens. But when she sips it, she doesn’t react, even though I know it’s hot enough to burn her tongue.

I should have made myself a coffee, to wake up. Still, I’ve never had such a good reason to be exhausted. It’s hard not to grin, which would be deeply inappropriate in front of the grieving widow.

‘Who was her biological father?’ Thistle asks. The question is gentle, like she’s a counsellor. But I know that she’s really checking if we have a new suspect. This unknown man may have had more motive to kill Biggs than Shannon did, especially if he still had feelings for Gabriela.

‘His name was Peter Rodman,’ Gabriela says. ‘He was with the immigration police.’

This surprises me. An undocumented immigrant falling in love with a border control agent would be bizarre, given how badly the latter usually treat the former, though it’s mostly incompetence rather than cruelty.

Thistle is quicker on the uptake than I am. ‘He offered you a deal?’ she asks.

Gabriela nods. ‘He found me, soon after I met Ken. He said there was no record of me in the system yet. He said if I did some things for him, he wouldn’t file the paperwork.’ She looks at the floor. ‘He used a condom, but I suppose it broke, or he took it off.’

‘Does he know about Hope?’ Thistle asks.

‘No. When I found out I was pregnant, I knew he would try to make me have an abortion. So I never called him.’ Her eyes widened with alarm. ‘You’re not going to tell him?’

‘No. Don’t worry.’

She relaxes. ‘That’s good. He may want to meet Hope, but I don’t want her to meet him. He is a bad man.’

‘What about your husband?’ I ask. ‘Did he know?’