He had always known his parents weren’t his from birth. People only had to look at them to work it out, so Eddie worked it out straight away. This Noor lady must be his birth mum. So he tore up the letter, because as long as Eddie lived he would never want another mum.

But he couldn’t forget the names. Noor. Violette. Etienne. No surname, but when he googled those names together he learnt everything. Who had done the Brackenham bombing and why. He’d already known that ‘our Jimmy’ had died in a bombing, and for days and days and days Eddie was sick inside and couldn’t look his da in the eye.

Eddie went searching for other letters his mother had been sent by Noor. Not all of them were from Holloway. The other mother had been in a few prisons in the early days. And the more Eddie read, the more curious he was. Not about Noor or Etienne, but about Violette. He had a sister. A full-blooded sister. She was seventeen years old and she lived in Australia. On a farm. The other mother spoke to her every day.

Eddie found out everything about Violette through those letters. Like the fact that she seemed tough but was ‘seeing someone’ because of the nightmares. And she had been homeschooled since year seven because the kids in her class found out who her grandfather was and wrote awful things on her locker. The other mother said she was desperate for an appeal on her case because she needed to be home with Violette. But that didn’t seem to happen.

He also learnt from the letters that Violette was clever and wanted to be a doctor, and she loved her animals and was enjoying netball because for the first time she was allowed to be on a team. That she had become obsessed with her father’s death and wrote to Scotland Yard each time she remembered something new about the day Etienne died. That she swore way too much because she was used to being with the workers on the farm. That she knew very little about the world outside the town she lived in. That she spoke Arabic, French and English. And that she was going on a camp that year. To Tasmania.

So Eddie went searching for Violette. He couldn’t find her on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or anywhere else. The only Violette Zidane he came across was in a local paper called The Daily Advertiser. She played centre in a junior netball competition in the Riverina, New South Wales. So he found the name and address of the netball club and sent her a letter. He kept it short in case it never reached her.

Dear Violette,

My name is Eddie Conlon and I think you’re my sister. If you get this, my email is [email protected].

Yours sincerely,

Eddie Conlon

One month later he received an email from [email protected].

Dear Eddie,

This is Violette. Yes, I am your sister. I’ve thought of you every day since you were born, and I will think of you every day until I die. (Not to be dramatic or anything.) I’ve attached a photograph of myself. Do we look the same? It doesn’t matter if we don’t. I hope for your sake you don’t have my hair.

Love, Violette