She sits back, the iPad held loosely in her lap, thinking. Thinking about what to do next.

And feeling relieved too that at least it isn’t an affair.

But what is it? Something to do with the three of them. And something that – he thinks – doesn’t concern her. But something that requires him to cover his tracks.

She will have to ask him, she decides. She will have to ask him, and not take no for an answer, until he meets her eyes and tells her the truth. They’re married. They share a bed, sleep naked, share showers, sometimes. Rescue animals together, laugh together, want a family together. It’s only right that he tells her the truth.

32.

Cathy

Cathy can hear Lydia packing next door. She’s decided to burn the wallet and the warrant, and she hopes Lydia won’t come investigating.

A couple of matches does it, in an old bowl by an open window, the leather catching fire and curling, giving off an acrid smell. She has a jug of water handy, but luckily it smokes and burns to ash, and then to nothing.

Next, the warrant. It’s tucked in the side of the suitcase, and, as she gets it out, she is still thinking of Frannie and Jason Granger. She spreads out the pieces on the bed and leans over them, hands either side of them. They’ve dried out since that night when they got covered in blood and Frannie’s tears and the sweat from their panicky hands. Some parts are harder to read, but some are easier, the blood having paled.

But wait, what’s that? Her eyes scan, trying to make out any further words. An s, maybe. An o. A p …

She stands and holds up one of the pieces to the light like it’s an X-ray. There is something, down there, right before that rip.

The letters have been torn horizontally through their centres, that missing piece discarded somewhere so the remaining parts don’t fit together. But Cathy recognizes what is half written there. As easily as she would recognize her own name. Joseph Plant.

Cathy is standing in the airport next to Joe, wondering quite who he is. What does her brother know? Was Will already known to him? She thinks about his lie to the police, that he never saw Will, and of Frannie hiring a lawyer, and can’t help but wonder if they’re playing some sort of game that she doesn’t know the rules of.

‘Where do we check in?’ Frannie says, holding Paul, twenty minutes after everyone else has done it while she was in duty free. Cathy tries not to be irritated by her as Joe shows her where. ‘I can’t believe you did it without me!’ Frannie says to him as they walk off. ‘Your old Saturday Show colleague.’

They’re all nervous. But, so far, nobody’s told them there is a block on one of their passports. Nobody’s said they will be searched, and Cathy is pleased about that too, because before she burned the wallet and the warrant she took a private, encrypted photo of them on her phone. She knows it is a risk, but she couldn’t part with them entirely. Couldn’t quite leave the mystery alone. Might need them one day, to atone. Or to solve the mystery of who he was and what he wanted with them.