Gabi gave Anna a look that said: What am I? Chopped liver?

Anna leaned over and hugged Gabi with one arm. ‘You know I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and no one could ever replace you, it’s just… He lost someone himself, that’s all. He knows what it’s like.’

Gabi pulled away and made herself comfortable, turning onto her side to face Anna. ‘Who did he lose?’

‘His wife.’

Gabi just looked at her and waited for more information to be forthcoming. Anna thought hard, trying to remember the detail of that conversation they’d had a while ago, and it only highlighted the fact that Gabi had a point. Even though Brody knew every intimate detail about Spencer’s death and its aftermath, Anna was still a little fuzzy on his history. Something dramatic always seemed to be happening in her life at the moment, and she realized she’d got side-tracked from her mission to dig deeper into the mystery that was Brody.

‘We don’t talk about her much – everyone deals with grief in their own way – but he has mentioned her. He told me they’d been having problems before she…’

What was the phrase Brody had used? He hadn’t said ‘died’. Passed on? No. Left him? Not that either.

‘What do you actually know about this man?’

‘I know his name is Brody Smith, that he lives near Hexworthy on Dartmoor, and that he has a dog called Lewis.’

Gabi’s eyes widened. ‘Lewis?’ she repeated slowly. ‘Like Spencer’s dog Lewis?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s weird, isn’t it?’

‘Not really,’ Anna said ‘It’s just a coincidence.’

‘Really?’ Gabi plucked her phone out of her dressing gown pocket and pulled up Facebook. ‘Do you remember what is on Spencer’s page?’ she said as she scrolled through the posts.

Of course Anna remembered what was on Spencer’s page. There were hundreds of posts from three years ago, outpourings of support and sympathy, exclamations of shock and sadness at the news. It had been comforting at the time to know that he’d been so loved, so she’d kept his profile active, and had never quite got around to deleting it.

Gabi’s eyes lit up. ‘Aha!’ She turned the phone around and thrust it at Anna, a triumphant expression on her face. ‘Look!’

There was a picture of Spencer, arms tight around his beloved dog’s neck. Both of them seemed to be grinning at the camera. She remembered him scanning that picture in. The caption read: Five years since we lost our Lewis. Miss you, mate.

She looked back at Gabi. ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘That this man may not be who he says he is. Remember all those episodes of Catfish we watched together?’

Anna nodded. Gabi had become obsessed with the show after a dodgy internet dating experience. She’d made Anna sit though hours watching the two presenters, Nev and Max, helping people uncover the true identities of their online loves. Hardly anyone had been who they’d said they were.