‘You weren’t warned?’ Rhona said.

‘Sex and anything to do with it wasn’t a topic for discussion in our good Catholic house. What about you?’

‘I remember when my mum told me I was adopted and who my birth mother and father were.’

‘Wow.’ Chrissy made a face. ‘That’s a biggie.’

‘It didn’t feel like it at the time,’ Rhona said honestly.

Her mum had volunteered the information one day while they chopped vegetables for the soup together at the kitchen table. Just in case Rhona wanted to know, she’d said, and couldn’t ask.

‘Your mum was my cousin Lily,’ she’d explained. ‘She was a traveller.’

It had sounded romantic.

‘She’s travelled all round the world.’ Her mum had continued grating the carrots as she’d talked. ‘She brought back this nice boyfriend once. That was your dad. He wanted to marry her, but she always said no.’

‘Why?’ It was the only question Rhona had ever asked about her real mother.

‘Our Lily was her own woman. “Give a man a bit of paper and he’ll think he’s bought you.” That’s what she used to say.’

‘So you never met your birth mum or dad?’ Chrissy asked.

‘No, although I have their photograph, taken on a trip to Millport. My dad died in Venice. Lily came back, but she only stayed long enough to have me, and then she went. Couldn’t stand the weather here. It was the greyness, Mum said. She died in Istanbul and is buried there.’

Chrissy looked thoughtful. ‘I like the sound of Lily.’ She gave Rhona a hard look. ‘I think you’ve inherited some of her traits, especially the own woman bit. Your adopted mum did a good job on you, though. Lily probably knew she would.’

Rhona realized that Chrissy was right about her mother. So why had she hidden Liam’s existence from both her parents? Looking back, it was something she couldn’t explain, even to herself.

What we chose to forget, it seemed, was more significant than what, through time, we simply couldn’t remember.

‘Teenage years. Now I remember them,’ Chrissy was saying with a grin. ‘And the first time I had sex, which was pretty shite by the way.’

Rhona held up her hand when Chrissy looked as though she might tell her the whole story. ‘Please, I don’t need to know the details.’

Chrissy looked affronted. ‘I was about to ask you about your first time.’

‘Some things,’ Rhona said, ‘are better left unsaid.’

‘That bad, eh?’ Chrissy said sympathetically.

‘Not at all,’ Rhona said with a suggestive smile. ‘Anyway, I have to head for the strategy meeting. You’ll text me if anything more comes back on the tests?’

Chrissy said she would. ‘Are you going to mention your visit to the locus with Emma?’

‘No. But I will suggest an aerial examination for anomalies.’

The conference room was filling up, initially to watch the appeal go out on national TV, after which the strategy meeting would go ahead.

As yet there was no sign of McNab or Magnus, both of whom Rhona had expected to see there, but she did spot DS Clark and headed over to her. They exchanged pleasantries while Rhona reminded herself how lucky McNab was to have such a partner, hoping he appreciated it.