Scrapyard? He’d been there, too? She sat on the closed toilet lid, legs weak, goosepimples on the back of her shoulders. She knew he knew it all. He glared down at her, his face part anxiety and part anger and part terror. But he knew she was suffering too, because he took her hands and knelt before her. Jefferson’s didn’t have cramped toilet cubicles.

‘I know, Anna. I know it all. I know about the hit-and-run. It’s why you needed to leave London so quickly. I know about the cloned car. I don’t know how you arranged it all, but I know. Is this about revenge? Someone connected to those people you killed? Did they take Josie to get revenge? But what are you doing here? Is there something here they want? A secret money stash? What? Talk to me.’

Still in shock, she touched his face, as if to confirm he was really there, and to give herself time to catch her breath. He waited.

‘Yes, I did that. It was me. Do you hate me? I killed them, I killed those two people, and I didn’t tell the police. I couldn’t. The families have had no answers because of me. But I hid that secret for us. We were going to get married. We wanted children. I hid it for us.’ She averted her eyes. ‘And for him, God knows why,’ she added with clear distaste.

‘Him? Who? Eastman?’

So he really did know it all.

‘Was this about revenge? What’s here in this bank that the kidnappers want, Anna?’

She gripped his hands tighter. So, he didn’t know it all, and now she had the added problem of having to dump another crushing weight on him. But his hands were warm and comforting and she wanted to unload, needed to after all these years, and there was no person on the planet, not even Jane, she would rather confide in.

‘It’s not about revenge. But it is about that night.’

‘Anna, right now I don’t care that you hid it away. I understand why, and I’ll help you come to terms with it—’

‘But the police know, Nick. That detective, Bennet, he told me they knew about Watson-Bruce Salvage. I knew then that the police would eventually find out about the… accident. That’s how you know, isn’t it? You went there with the police, didn’t you? They know everything, don’t they? They’re going to take me away from Josie.’

‘Yes, they know, but we’ll get through it. Why is that hit-and-run connected to Josie’s kidnap, Anna? What’s here in this bank that they want? Is it money?’

‘I wish this was about money. But it’s not.’

Sixteen