‘But he said there was no proof he was in the car. He went to a function and there were witnesses. And, he said, even if the police worked out that the accident happened before he attended the function, he could claim he was with his car in the petrol station. He was parked in a blind corner behind the car wash so no one would recognise him, and there was no camera there. My alibi was I was with him, helping him to try to fix the car, but he would say that I left early. It was my word against his, and his would carry more weight. He was the great Marc Eastman, MP. And if the police checked the cameras watching the entrance, they would see his car didn’t leave the garage and mine did. And he would tell the police that when I came back, I was very upset and crying.

‘So I told him. I told him about the dashcam. I’d thrown that thing in a drawer and tried to forget about it. I told him I had the video transferred to disk, and if ever he tried to lie, I would expose him. He’d got me the safety box and I was the only one who could access it. I said the disk would stay in there and no one would ever know about it as long as he didn’t lie if the police found out. It was my protection. My Forcefield against him.

‘And nothing came of it. The police checked the fake car and then forgot about me. There must have been no CCTV in that area that captured my registration or gave them anything. I was amazed. So I made the most of it. I moved on. I know I told you I wanted to change my name to get out of my father’s shadow, because he was angry that I’d quit my job. But the truth is it was Eastman I didn’t want to be associated with. I wanted to forget that period of my life. At first I kept watching him in the news and by searching the Internet, but before long whole days would go past without doing this. Soon I barely thought about him. I locked that whole terrible time away in my mind. And as the years passed, I forgot about the disk that still sat in the old safety box. And Eastman seemed to forget about me, because he never tried to make contact. Despite my name change and moving cities, a powerful man like him could have found me if he wanted. He probably locked it all away too and concentrated on climbing the greasy Westminster pole. It was a horrible thing to do, cover that crime and leave those families without answers, and I’m so sorry. But I got what I wanted, Nick. I got you. I got Josie.’