‘He doesn’t exist,’ she says, interrupting me.

‘Huh?’

‘Daniel Lennon doesn’t exist. Or, rather, he didn’t exist, prior to 1997.’

‘Sorry, what?’ The room goes darker still and I grab the top of the sofa to steady myself.

‘There’s no trace of the guy being born. He doesn’t show up till about twenty years ago. So he is not who he says he is. And there’s something else—’

‘Hold up,’ I say, because something has occurred to me. ‘How do you know this?’

‘Um, well . . .’

‘Because the last time Mum asked you to check someone out at work, you said you could be sacked for it.’

‘I didn’t do it myself. But I know a guy . . . an ex-colleague, who has ways and means. After I met “Dan” at the weekend’ – she does air quotes as she speaks his name – ‘I had this feeling. A bad feeling. So I asked my guy to do the absolute basic checks, and when those rang alarm bells, I got him to dig a bit deeper.’

I stand up so fast it makes me light-headed. ‘You did that without talking to me first?’

‘You’d have said no. Look, when you’ve dealt with as many dodgy characters as I have, you get a sixth sense. The moment he found out I was police, we didn’t see him for dust. And, as it turns out, my instincts were right. He’s been inside, Gems.’

And that’s when I realize it’s a case of mistaken identity. ‘No. You’ve got the wrong guy. His dad has been to prison, but not Dan.’

‘Gems, it’s definitely him. I’m sorry, but it is. He went to prison for fraud, got fourteen months, though I bet he wormed his way out a lot sooner than that. I’ll forward you the email, but I had to talk to you in person first. I didn’t want to do this, Gems, but we’ve been so worried about you, I couldn’t let it go.’

I want to shout and scream at her, but I can’t kill the messenger. It’s not Laura, but Dan – or whoever he really is – who deserves my anger. He’s the one who wormed his way into my life and my poor, bruised heart.

Laura makes me a tea with three sugars and tries to get me to talk about Dan-who-isn’t-Dan, but I don’t have the words.

I sink onto the sofa after she leaves. I need all my mental energy to find an alternative explanation. ‘People change their names all the time, don’t they, Bear? Yours kept changing when you were in and out of the rescue centre.’

If he didn’t exist before 1997, Dan was only twelve or thirteen when he changed his name, the same age he was when his dad went to jail. Perhaps that’s the reason: he wanted a fresh start, so he took his foster family’s surname.

But still . . . fraud: that’s not so easily explained away. Was I a ‘mark’ to him? Did he lie about our ‘connection’ and plan to exploit me further down the line? However hard I try to silence the questions, they nag at me, like a tooth with a hole that I can’t stop probing.