‘She was living with me and left when she was pregnant. I tried to find her, but it wasn’t so easy back then. No mobile phones, no tracking, no internet. She just . . . disappeared off the face of the earth. And then I met your mother and Rose seemed less important.’

‘And your daughter?’

‘I wasn’t even sure if Rose had had the baby. She was around your age when I met her. She’d been around. She was only six months pregnant when she left me. And she was so . . . flighty.’

This doesn’t tie up with what Lorna said about her mother. ‘Are you saying you didn’t think the baby was yours? Well, I’ve got news for you, Dad. She is. The resemblance to both you and me is unmistakable. Is she who you were trying to find? Is that why you had that article on your desk, or is there more you’re hiding from me?’

His dad puts a hand to his head looking pained and, in that moment, less like the authoritarian control-freak Theo was always scared of and more like an old man. ‘It’s complicated. I asked Glen to look into it for me.’

He says this as though he’s discussing something as anodyne as the weather.

‘What does Glen actually do? He made out he’s a private detective but that’s bullshit, isn’t it? Is he just a conman? I don’t know what the police said to you earlier, but if you’re linked with him it won’t be good for you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He turns away from Theo to make tea. But something doesn’t sit right about all of this: his dad’s responses are purposefully evasive.

‘What about the evidence?’ asks Theo.

His dad doesn’t say anything but Theo notices a stiffening of his shoulders. A hesitation as he dunks a teabag. ‘Evidence?’

He’s playing for time, Theo can tell. ‘Yes. Apparently, when your henchman accosted Lorna – your own daughter – in the street,’ he spits this sentence out, hoping his father will hear the disgust in his voice, ‘he said something about Rose burying some evidence. What did he mean?’

His dad still has his back to Theo. ‘I have no idea,’ he says but Theo can hear the lie in his voice.

‘And then Davies broke into the cottage. Nothing was taken, funny that. But he was obviously looking for something.’

His dad turns to face him and hands him a mug. ‘I know nothing about that.’

‘Of course you do,’ says Theo, taking the tea. ‘Davies never does anything unless you say so. Is this what you were like with the police? They’ll see through it, Dad. You’re tied with Glen now.’