We’ve just come back from dropping Mum at the airport. She suddenly announced yesterday that she’d booked a flight for today, that she would love to have stayed longer but it’s been two weeks and she had no choice but to return. There was so much left unsaid between us as we hugged goodbye. There never seemed the right time to continue that discussion we had in the car, or for me to reassure her that I love her. After finding out Gran is really Daphne, everything between me and Mum just got buried underneath it. Mum can barely process what she’s feeling about all of that, let alone dredge up our past.

‘Right,’ says Tom, bending down and unclipping Snowy from his lead. ‘Shall we order a takeaway for tea? I could murder fish and chips.’

‘I’m going to miss Mum’s cooking,’ I say wistfully, kicking off my trainers and slipping out of my Puffa. The cottage suddenly seems too big and quiet without her. I hang my coat on the rack by my study. Tom follows suit. We were drenched during the dash into the house from the car.

‘I know. I’m going to miss her too. She’s a force to be reckoned with.’ He heads towards the kitchen.

‘Do you think she’ll be okay?’ I ask, going to the kettle and smiling to myself to see that Mum has moved the toaster into the corner. She never could leave things alone. ‘It must be a shock for her, finding out her mother isn’t actually her mother.’ I glance out of the window at the garden. We’re still waiting for confirmation that the body does belong to the real Rose Grey. DS Barnes said we should get the results tomorrow.

‘It’s the same for you,’ says Tom, gently. ‘You thought Rose was your grandmother all these years.’

‘I still love her. I can’t . . .’ I gulp, tears springing to my eyes ‘. . . I can’t just stop loving her. I can’t forget everything we’ve been through together – everything she’s done for me, you know? But then I think she could have killed my actual grandmother . . .’

‘I understand.’ He comes over to me and wraps his arms around my waist. ‘I can’t believe – whoever she is – that she’s a killer, though. There could be some other explanation if the body does belong to the real Rose.’

‘She killed when she was ten years old. All the things I thought I knew about Gran were wrong.’

Tom falls silent as we digest this. ‘We’ve read all the reports from the time,’ he says, after a while. ‘She had an awful upbringing . . . she was abused herself. And she was rehabilitated.’