Even if things went well, there was every possibility that it might get back to Hayesfield. Vale might call the station and one of the other detectives might pick up Jo’s phone. Or, perhaps innocently, and for whatever reason, his mother might. Valeria was in the kitchen, she was listening to them, she’d been here when Jo had arrived; by extension, she’d already become a part of this. Or it could go really badly and Vale might start throwing around accusations of harassment, citing circumstantial evidence and the word of a single, anonymous caller. Jo had gone back into old school records, had phoned the Kmart in Temple City that the caller claimed she and Martina Lopez – Vale’s ex-girlfriend – had passed through at the same time in 1982, in an effort to try and find out who the caller was and if Jo could trust a word she was saying. But it was another dead end: there was such a high turnover of staff, no one remembered people who’d worked at the store three months ago, let alone three years, and the managers kept no records of former employees. Jo could have called the Department of Labor or the IRS and tried to trace the woman via them, but that meant official paperwork, and that definitely risked Hayesfield finding out. So here she was, feeling vulnerable and undercooked.

I could already be home by now.

I could be with Ethan.

Valeria brought out two tall glasses of home-made lemonade, ice cubes clinking. Jo hadn’t asked for anything else but she let Mrs Vale busy herself, watched her return to the kitchen to collect some cookies and then bring them back out on a plate. Jo said she was fine, and then Valeria placed two on the arm of the couch, next to her son, without asking.

‘I’ll wait for dinner, Ma.’

‘You’ve had a long day,’ Valeria replied. ‘You need the energy.’

Vale glanced at Jo, a half-smile on his face. But it wasn’t a smile of embarrassment, it was one of clear and undeniable love for his mom.

‘Okay, Ma,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘Thank you.’