She was the woman who’d brought Beatrix into the world in March 1965, the woman who’d carried her for the nine months before that, and what she’d said to Patrick made perfect sense, because the hole she’d talked about burying Beatrix in had never been a physical one. Instead, the hole was the deepest, remotest part of her. It was a place in which she could try to inter the trauma of giving her baby away.

‘So why would she want to know about Beatrix now?’ Healy asked, half covered by shadows, his knuckles red from trying to fight off Mills. ‘How did she even know Patrick to ask for his help?’

I tapped the top of the Dictaphone. ‘She says why in a second,’ I told him, because I’d heard the next ten minutes in the car before I’d got back to the farm. I’d heard her explain to Patrick the reasons why she needed to know the truth.

The answer to that was coming.

And so was something even bigger.

I continued to hear the same words being spoken for a second time – ‘She was my baby, my daughter, and I gave her away’ – and then the woman said, ‘Sorry. What a state I must look …’ I heard her sniff, clear her throat; imagined her getting herself together, trying to collect her thoughts. Eventually, she started speaking again, and though her words were soft, they were warm: ‘I would never have thought of Beatrix for a name. It’s actually lovely. I’m glad they called her that.’

‘What did you want to call her?’

‘Sophie.’

‘That’s pretty too.’

‘It had been my grandmother’s name. After the birth, after I held her in my arms, I looked at her and thought, “Sophie”. It suited her so well.’

‘What did your boyfriend think?’

‘Not much, really. Simon Lenderith, his name was. We were both teenagers. The moment he found out I was pregnant, he basically abandoned us, so I did the whole thing on my own. Well, me and my mum. My dad didn’t speak to me for five months after I told him I was going to have a baby.’ She made a sound: a short laugh, bereft of any humour. ‘A teenage girl getting pregnant: that gets frowned upon even now, so imagine what it was like back then. But, you know, Dad was just a product of his time … I didn’t blame him.’

‘What about this Lenderith guy?’ Healy asked me. ‘Is he relevant?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I tried looking him up just now, and the only Simon Lenderith I could find, who’s about the right age, died back in October 2011.’

‘I always dreamed she would come and find me.’

The woman had started talking again.

‘Beatrix?’