‘I’m not sure I ever told you this,’ she said, quieter now, the words harder to say, ‘but a long time ago, my husband gave me this picture album for my birthday. Ira was really good at taking pictures – and so, up until Ethan was six, he took all these photographs of us on outings we’d have, on vacation, even while we were sitting around at home. And so he gave me this album as a present, and I thought it was a sweet thing to do, but as I opened it up and started flicking through the pages, I began to realize something: there would be months between pictures of me. It was all about Ethan, obviously, so there were a ton of pictures of him, and Ira was the one with the camera, which meant there were shots of them at the beach, in parks, on jungle gyms, in bounce houses, playing soccer, having frozen yoghurt, a whole bunch of things. But, whenever I was featured, we were at home, Ethan was always in his PJs, and he was usually full of snot or running a temperature or sick from some bug. Man, I remember feeling really annoyed about it to start with – how this album featured all these photos of them doing fun stuff, and then me with Ethan when he looked sad, and tired, and grumpy – to the point where I thought, “I’m definitely going to say something to Ira.” And then a couple of weeks after that, late at night, as I was driving back from the station, something suddenly occurred to me. Ethan was always sick in the pictures of me and him because, when he had a cold, or he couldn’t breathe, or whatever it was, he didn’t sleep. The illness would knock him out of his routine, and so he’d be getting up earlier and going to bed later. But once he was back in his routine, I’d be leaving before he was up and getting home after he was asleep.’

Her eyes dropped to her glass of water.

‘There were no pictures of me doing the fun stuff – going to the beach, or eating ice cream – because I …’ Jo’s voice faded. ‘Well, because basically I was never around.’

There were no tears in her eyes.

Not yet.

But she could feel them coming.

‘There are cases I’ve had that I’ve found impossible to let go.’ She stopped, dug around in her jacket pocket and came back with a small notebook. Its edges were tattered. She laid it down on the table between her and Dr Barnes, slid a finger inside and flipped it open to a well-worn section in the middle. Her handwriting was small, detailed, deliberately hard to read, but the title at the top was bigger and much clearer.

It was a case number.

#4729-81.

Underneath that was an address.

Star Inn, 1005 La Cienega.