Later, after we’ve eaten our fish and chips, which we had to drive to the next village to collect, and I’ve spoken to Mum, who assures me she’s arrived in San Sebastián safely, I escape upstairs for a bath. Ripping out the old bathroom was one of the first things we did when we found out the house was ours, then put in a claw-foot bath and walk-in shower. I touch my stomach. The baby kicks regularly now, little bubbles beneath my belly. I’m halfway through my pregnancy. We have another scan booked for next week. Sometimes I can’t believe we’ve got this far. I can hear the murmur of the TV downstairs. Tom is watching some football match. I get out of the bath and wrap myself in my towelling robe. And then I go into Mum’s room. She’s left it neat, stripped the bed and bundled the sheets into the washing machine before she left this morning. There is nothing to say she was ever here apart from a faint whiff of her musky perfume. I don’t know if it’s my hormones but I ache for her in a way I’ve never done before, not even as a child left with my grandmother during those long summers.

Then I go into the little bedroom at the back, the room that will belong to the baby. The room that used to be Mum’s when she was Lolly. Whoever rented it from Gran obviously never used it, except as a junk room. I go to the fireplace, remembering our mad dash around the house looking for the evidence that Davies was certain we had. I touch the warm wood. It’s like the mantel in Mum’s room – pine and engraved with delicate flowers. It’s covered with dust. I’m surprised Mum didn’t come in here to clean. I go to move towards the window but as I do so I trip on a nail sticking out of the floorboards and grab hold of the corner of the mantelpiece to stop myself falling. I right myself, my hand still on the mantelpiece, when I notice it’s come away slightly at the wall. I peer closer. My heart quickening in excitement, I pull it. There’s something hidden beneath it. Like a hole where the fireplace meets the brick. It’s concealed by the mantelpiece but I can tell something’s there. Something hidden. ‘Tom!’ I yell. ‘Tom!’

I hear his feet thundering on the bare staircase and he darts into the room, breathless. ‘What is it? Are you okay? Is it the baby?’

‘I think I’ve found where Gran may have hidden the evidence,’ I say. ‘Quick, help me lift this up.’