‘And then when Luke went missing,’ Tom continued, ‘again your reaction didn’t add up. Just like when Emily left, I could tell you were hiding something. It wasn’t shock or bewilderment I saw on your faces, it was guilt. I saw the looks that passed between you, and then I overheard you, Dad, begging Mum’s forgiveness, promising that Luke would be OK. And when I asked you outright in that fucking kitchen, the day Clara and Mac came round, when I asked you if you knew where Luke was, you denied it! You lied! I knew you were lying. And now I know why. It’s her, isn’t it? The person who has Luke, it’s this fucking woman! Hannah, my half-sister.’

Rose nodded miserably. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘And does she know where Emily is?’

‘We don’t know. Sometimes she likes to taunt us, telling us she does, other times she denies all knowledge. We’ve never known what to believe.’

‘What does she want from us? Why did she approach me in Manchester all those years ago?’

‘Revenge,’ said Oliver quietly. ‘And money. Once she’d made contact with you in Manchester she phoned us constantly, telling us that she’d seen you, that she was going to tell you everything, that there was nothing we could do about it. That once she’d finished with you you’d never want to see us again, would disappear from our lives like your sister. She told us it was all going to come out … my affair, giving her away as a baby, the ridiculous lies about her mother’s supposed murder, all of it. She knew she couldn’t prove any of it to the police, so hurting us through you kids was the best way she could think of to punish us. We were trying to protect you from it all!’

‘Jesus fucking Christ! And you didn’t think to tell me about it? You didn’t think I had a right to know about the nutcase who was hanging around me?’

Oliver hung his head. ‘We paid her a lot of money. Thousands and thousands of pounds to leave you alone. She was broke, homeless, a drifter, she’d … been in a lot of trouble throughout her life, drugs, prison …’

‘Prison?’ Clara asked.

‘We paid her the money and it worked. We didn’t hear from her for ten years. I hired a private detective to track her down, keep an eye on her. Her life … it spiralled, she was a junkie, a prostitute, constantly in trouble with the police. She was in no fit state to continue to wage her war against us, so she left us in peace for a time.’