Transfixed as I am by the story unfolding on Bonnie’s scribbled pages, I don’t notice the sky outside lose its glow and turn dark. When David points out that I’m shivering and fetches me a blanket, I barely notice. The coffee goes cold, my hair turns crinkly as it dries, and I bite first one nail, and then another down to the quick as I read about my eighteen-year-old mother’s arrival in London, about how she found a job, met a boy, fell in love, trusted him and others who let her down. I try to imagine what it must have been like to be so far from home – this home – away from parents who had yearned for a child for so long. I picture Bonnie’s loneliness, and her naivety, and her innocence – I find common ground where I don’t expect to, and experience pangs of sympathy, and of understanding.

When the story takes me inside the house belonging to the professor and his wife, and shows me the shelf of baby books, the truth hits me with such force that I gasp, and looking up I find that David’s gaze is already on me, and that he is waiting to answer any questions that I might have.

‘You were a university professor?’ I prompt, and watch as his features contort into an apologetic grimace.

‘Yes, for a time. I gave it up before you were born, though – started teaching at a secondary school instead.’

‘Why?’ I ask, but before he can answer. ‘No, don’t tell me – you didn’t want to risk any news of me getting back to Seth?’

He frowns at that, as if puzzled.

‘No – God, no. We all tried to find Seth. After Bonnie found out that she was pregnant, I tried everything I could to find him, but he’d vanished into thin air, like Evangeline’s train. We later discovered that he had been using a false surname. He stole a lot of money from Lavender’s family. I’m afraid he was a bit of a crook.’

‘Nothing that she didn’t deserve,’ I grumble, but David merely sighs.

‘Lavender was very young then, too,’ he points out. ‘Seth was a master manipulator. He had all of us fooled in the beginning – including me.’

‘Still,’ I say, ‘she hardly deserves a bloody medal.’

He chuckles at that, and when I raise an enquiring eyebrow says, ‘You never used to swear – not even a “bugger”. You must have picked that up while you’ve been out here.’

From Kit.

‘So,’ I say, reaching for my coffee, only to recoil when I realise how cold it is, ‘what happened next?’

‘You mean, after Seth disappeared?’ David checks. ‘Sorry, I don’t know how far through the story Bonnie got.’