I read on. I have also found out that Carson went to live with the mother’s side of the family – the relatives of Abigail. Jochem’s email then said: Her mother had a younger sister, Abigail’s aunt, who despite never having met her great-nephew was judged the nearest family relation. She was a teacher and very experienced with young children, and had never married herself. She went to Texas to pick up Carson thirteen years ago, and took him to live in London, in the borough of Wandsworth.

I was stunned. Carson had been in England this whole time? I remembered now that Abby had an English mother. That’s why they hired me in the first place, because of the British connection. She had been an actress in the sixties, quite big in the Ealing comedies; she went on to Hollywood but found the dream was rotten on the inside. She had died of skin cancer when Abby was in college, and Abby had talked about her a lot. There were framed pictures of her around the house, a wide-eyed innocent with cat’s-eye liner and a blonde beehive. Beautiful, in a very different way to how Abby was beautiful.

I was astonished by this news. My little butterball, growing up so close? I might have walked past him in the street. The regret, the wasted years, seemed to land on me then and I gasped slightly. Then I had another thought. No one could want revenge on me more than Carson. After all, he had been told by the justice system, and no doubt by his poisonous aunt, that I had murdered his entire family. And he’d been here, in the UK, for years.

I read the final lines of Jochem’s message, though my hands were shaking. I believe that Carson’s name was changed, to avoid the publicity of the case, as I cannot find any records for the name Carson Safran anywhere in the UK.

Carson could be called anything now. I tried to remember had I ever heard Abby’s maiden name; couldn’t recall. I couldn’t help thinking about the years I’d missed with him. I imagined him at six, moving to a new country, probably scared, traumatised by whatever Ruth had done to him. Then at ten, maybe playing football, running and laughing, skinny with excess energy, maybe even with an English accent now. Carson as a teenager, perhaps sullen and angry, but sweet underneath it, surely. He had been such a placid baby.