‘Jane.’ I didn’t elaborate on my failure to discover her surname. I’d tried a few Internet searches for her under Zac’s but found nothing. I hadn’t wanted to press him to talk about her, when I could see how painful he found it.

‘Jane Miller,’ Maxine said, as if she guessed that my knowledge was limited. ‘Let me give you some facts.’

‘I don’t want your facts.’

‘Hear me out. Okay?’

I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t stop her, either.

‘Born August fourth, 1980, in London. Raised there by a single mother. Father was American – died in 2008 – Jane never knew him, unless seeing him as a baby counts. The father moved back to the US after Jane’s mother divorced him – their relationship ended before Jane’s first birthday. The mother’s been dead since 1998.’

I couldn’t quell my own curiosity, though I tried to sound bored. ‘What was – is – Jane’s profession?’

‘Social worker.’

‘Maybe she pissed somebody off. Maybe you should be looking at that.’

‘She stopped working a few years before she disappeared.’

‘What was her area?’

‘The elderly – not a speciality where she’d be likely to attract a lot of hate.’

‘You didn’t tell me the names of her parents.’ I pulled Jane Eyre closer, across my tummy, as if to shield myself.

‘Jane’s mother was Isabelle Miller. Her father was Philip Veliko. Philip remarried soon after he returned to the US and had a son with his new wife. Frederick.’

‘Would the father’s new family have reason to resent Jane?’

‘Jane inherited some money from her father, but the second wife predeceased him and Frederick didn’t dispute Jane’s inheritance – everything was split equally between Frederick and Jane. No known grievances or hostile behaviour from any of them.’

‘Was Jane in contact with her brother?’ Jane Eyre rose and fell as I breathed.

‘As far as we can tell, only after their father’s death, not before.’

‘Well, you should still look at the brother. Most people would be pretty pissed off if some sibling they didn’t even know swanned in and took half their inheritance.’

‘Listen to me, Holly. Jane Miller is like you. And like your friend in the book.’ Briefly, lightly, she tapped Jane Eyre with a gloved finger. ‘She found herself living with a man whose closets were filled with skeletons. And she found, in the end, that she had to look in them. You are already living the perfect cover story. You don’t need to change a thing.’

Round and round my finger went. ‘My life isn’t a cover story. My life is my life. My life is real.’ I shook my head. ‘Normally, you ask someone inside a government organisation to betray their country in some way. In my case, you want me to betray my boyfriend, be an informant on my boyfriend. No way. Not happening.’