The two police officers give each other a sideways glance.

‘We’re looking at all lines of inquiry at the moment,’ says Robson.

I want to tell them to look into one they couldn’t possibly have imagined. The recently released prisoner 491032-056 and his rehabilitated daughter who might well be leading this entire operation from a condo on Long Island. They might even be doing it from right here in Whitstable.

I shudder at the thought. Had they seen me? Followed me? Had my sister stood so close that she was able to smell my perfume? I wouldn’t have known, I’m sure of that.

That blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in the Google image is now a woman who haunts me. I try to kid myself that I would recognize her if I saw her now; that I’d have an innate sense of her being my own flesh and blood. But in reality she’s a stranger, with a complex hatred for the sister who she believes abandoned her.

‘So unless there’s anything else you’d like to tell us,’ says Robson, bringing me back into the room, ‘you’re free to leave.’

I scrape my chair back and stand up, desperate to get out from underneath her unswerving scrutiny.

We lock eyes and hers tell me everything I need to know.

She’s adamant that I’m a jilted lover, that I’ve abducted Jacob, or Michael, or whoever he is, and am either holding him somewhere against his will, or have already done away with him.

She thinks that it’s only going to be a matter of time before I slip up and reveal my secret. But I haven’t got time on my side. The only way I’m going to get myself out of this is to find Jacob, and find him now.

17

I rush out of the police station, desperate for fresh air, and gulp it down.

I’m only a few miles from home, but standing on that roadside, I may as well be in another country. Everything feels so surreal, as if I’m frozen in time whilst everyone else rushes around me, utterly oblivious to the precipice I’m precariously balanced on.

It’s as if I’m just waiting for someone to push me off, but without knowing which direction they’re going to come from, it’s impossible to shore myself up. I feel horribly vulnerable and exposed from every angle and would rather get it over with; for whoever is doing this to do their worst, so that I can open my eyes again. It’s the waiting, the not knowing when and how, that’s stopping me from breathing.