‘We now know that he had changed his identity and was living with you in the farmhouse in Scotland. But until you came back, and the police mentioned his previous name which they discovered in the documents at your house, I had no idea he took you. No one did, because he was assumed to be dead, so he was never a line of investigation. Everyone thought you had been snatched randomly and that we had simply been deeply, deeply unlucky.’

There is silence, punctuated only by Karen’s laboured breathing. Is she really telling me what I think she is?

‘So it’s your fault my dad died?’ I clarify. ‘Your fault that his family was killed? It’s all down to you that I was taken and have to live with the mental scars? Yours, your husband’s and Jesse’s.’

‘Please, please forgive me,’ she rasps, but I am not listening. ‘I considered telling you when I made the connection, but I couldn’t lose you again! I only wanted …’

‘Does Jesse know about this?’ I snap.

‘I told him recently, when I could no longer keep it to myself, but he said that you were too fragile, that telling you would only make things worse and …’

‘He knew about this?’ I shriek. This changes everything. He is not the person I thought he was. He doesn’t have my back in the way I thought he did. He doesn’t have my back at all.

‘We only wanted to do what was best for you, please, my darling, don’t blame Jesse, tell me that you’ll—’

‘You selfish bitch,’ I interrupt, standing up and leaving the room, as Karen coughs and pleads at my retreating back. A deafening alarm sounds from one of the monitors she is hitched to and ten seconds later a team of medics crash past me and through her door. I don’t look back.

Epilogue

Lola

All things considered, life has been pretty fun since I left the ships. It’s kind of interesting pretending to be someone else. And a whole different life to being out at sea. No one to tell me what to do. I love it.

Sometimes I wonder who Daniella du Bois was before I took on her identity. Probably some poor child who died shortly after she was born – as far as I understand, that’s often where stolen identities usually come from. I left sorting out that side of things to someone else; I just paid the money, told them what I needed, whoever ‘they’ were, and that was that. It’s amazing what you can buy on the dark net. I felt it was kind of a tribute to my dad. I did the same as he did – exacted revenge and then took a new identity. I hope he’d be proud.