There was a murmur of disbelief when James broke the news to the team. Shock was etched on the faces of everyone in the room as they tried to process what he was saying.

‘This is yet another unexpected development,’ he said. ‘Robert and Mary Bateman must have known that the baby they brought up was not their own. It begs the question as to what the hell happened back in 1997. We know that Charlotte and Megan were born several weeks apart and that the families spent a bit of time together socially. But when Simon and Amanda Roth were killed, and their baby was reported missing, the Batemans were staying with Robert’s mother in Sunderland, and by all accounts their own child was with them.

‘So, we need to know when and how the real Charlotte died. When she was buried in the cellar. And why the Batemans pretended to the world that baby Megan was their own child.’

‘Do you think that Charlotte knew that Robert and Mary weren’t her real parents?’ DC Abbott asked.

James shook his head. ‘I very much doubt that they told her. It would have been far too risky.’

‘We’ve heard that the girl had a difficult relationship with her mother. Perhaps that was the reason.’ This from DCI Tanner.

‘It’s possible,’ James said. ‘Another mystery to me is how they managed to pull it off back then. Surely the two babies would have looked different. At the time Charlotte was six weeks old and Megan was three weeks old.’

‘Because babies grow and change appearance so quickly all they had to do was keep Megan away from people for a while,’ Tanner said. ‘It wouldn’t have been that difficult, especially as their home was fairly remote.’

‘Well, I’m hoping we’ll get some of the answers from William Nash when we speak to him,’ James said. ‘He wrote in his note that he wanted the world to know what really happened back then. We can only assume that he somehow found out. And maybe that led to what happened to the Batemans on Christmas Eve.’

Among the things they went on to discuss was the memorial stone that had been placed over the cellar floorboards above the skeleton.

‘It makes sense now why the names of Amanda and Simon Roth are not on it,’ DS Stevens said. ‘The Batemans must have put it there as a tribute to their real daughter. But I can’t help wondering how and why she died, and whether they might have killed her.’

Someone else pointed out that the body of baby Megan, or rather Charlotte, was probably placed in the cellar when the Batemans bought the farm and moved in, which was why it wasn’t discovered during the forensic search. Before then it must have been hidden elsewhere, perhaps in the couple’s original home or somewhere close to it.