‘Well, there’s no rush, is there, now we know it won’t help Charis House?’

‘True. But if we do tell him, isn’t it better that he still has the chance to talk to her about it? Otherwise it just leaves him with more unanswered questions.’

‘That, as far as we can tell, he’s never been interested in knowing the answers to.’ Jed groaned. ‘Maybe the kindest thing to do is keep it to ourselves.’

‘As far as we can tell. How far is that though, considering no one’s allowed to even mention it?’

‘You definitely think we should tell him now?’

‘No!’

‘You think we shouldn’t tell him?’ I could hear Jed growing increasingly exasperated.

‘No! I think that I’ve no idea what we should do! I was hoping you, as the eldest sibling, would know.’

‘Crap.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll talk to Mia.’

We reached the Coach House at nine-thirty, Jed’s car pulling up right behind us as they arrived back from the hospital. Henry declined to come in, saying that he still had unpacking to do. Although he’d not been curt with me on the way home, he’d answered all my comments with robo-Henry politeness, and made no attempt at a genuine conversation.

Mia took the kids up to bed while Jed and I convened in the study.

‘There’s no question it’s him,’ he pronounced, after inspecting the photograph in the beam of the desk lamp.

‘Me and my stupid ideas.’ I shook my head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this was a terrible plan from the start?’

‘I distinctly remember telling you this wasn’t our secret to uncover.’

‘Do you also remember persuading me to keep looking, when I was ready to give up?’

‘We can argue about whose fault it is for the rest of the night, or we can come up with a plan about what to do,’ Jed huffed. I knew it was only the stress making him tetchy, but my little-sister hackles were raised all the same.

‘I’ve told you I don’t know what we should do! We were only going to tell anyone if the man we found could help us, but now we’ve found him, he’s become a real person, not simply an idea. I don’t know if I can keep this secret. Especially with what might happen now the mission’s failed.’

‘Then we could tell Nana Joy that we know, see what she has to say first.’

‘No!’ That suggestion horrified me. ‘You didn’t see how she reacted when I brought him up. That’s not an option. We tell Dad, or we tell no one.’

‘Although you’ve already told Henry.’

‘Oh, Henry’s practically family, that doesn’t count!’