Holding the phone closer, I double-tapped the screen to enlarge the background, zooming in on a cupboard and noticeboard over Mel’s left shoulder. The picture wasn’t taken in the bedroom, I realised abruptly. It struck me as a bit weird that the picture wasn’t taken in the bedroom, but in the kitchen where I was sitting right now. Maybe Ben demanded variety. To me it was weird anyway, and there was something else odd about it. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Her expression? No. She looked pleased as punch. What she was wearing? Not very much, apart from dark blue jeans. When did she have her hair styled that way? Recently? I couldn’t be sure. I tapped the More info option to find out when the image had been taken, but the date and time fields were blank.

Move on.

Think.

I turned to a fresh page of the pad and wrote out the numbers Bluetoothed from Mel’s secret mobile onto mine. Eight numbers that were a part of Ben’s secret life, and one of them almost certainly belonged to him. Eight numbers he didn’t know I had – which meant they might help me find him. Which meant they might be the key to putting my family back together, clearing my name and making a fresh start.

The first mobile number was not listed with a name, just the letter A. I opened the house address book, flipped to D and compared them to the numbers against Ben’s name. No matches. I checked again, digit by digit, but none of them tallied with the numbers listed as Ben’s work mobile or his personal phone. That was a surprise. Or was it? I guessed it made sense if Ben had a secret phone too.

There was a match for one of the landlines. BH corresponded to Ben’s home number, which was definitely ex-directory. Another one I recognised straight away – JW – was the number for main reception at my school. JW seemed to mean ‘Joe, Work’. So she could check up on my whereabouts, perhaps. A third landline number, designated ‘H’, produced a string of results on Google: top of the list was the Days Inn, Ealing, just off the A40. A small, three-star hotel about five miles from our house.

So H stood for Hotel. Presumably another place she met Ben when they could grab a few hours together. I wondered how many of the times she’d been away from home ‘on business’ when she might actually have been just a few miles west of here, sharing a bed with Ben Delaney.

Concentrate.

A landline designated with the letter ‘W’ looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t remember from where. The only results on Google were a random matching string of numbers for a car rental firm in Boston, Massachusetts. No joy there.