‘When I was seven years old,’ she went on calmly as though he hadn’t spoken, ‘I found out that Oliver Lawson was my real father, that he’d had an affair with my mother. She died when I was a few weeks old and he gave me away to the people who I would grow up believing were my real parents.’

He’d sat up then. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? I’ve known Luke’s family for years. I would know, I would – fuck, you’re not joking, are you?’

‘No,’ she’d said. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘Christ! I don’t … wait. You knew I was a friend of Luke’s when we met … that’s why you approached me?’

She leant forward and took his hand and he saw now that tears were spilling from her eyes. ‘Oh Mac, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for lying to you. I never thought I’d grow to have such deep feelings for you, that I’d start to fall for you the way I have. I just wanted some help, I thought you could help me and I understand that you might hate me now but …’ Overcome, she’d buried her face in her hands, weeping quietly.

He had stared at her in disbelief. ‘No,’ he said, tentatively putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘No, shush now, I don’t hate you … no, I, OK calm down, don’t cry, just tell me from the beginning.’

And so she had. How Oliver had taken advantage of one of his young students, how he’d got her pregnant then abandoned her, wanting nothing to do with Hannah when she was born. ‘Rose found out,’ she said. ‘She found out and she arranged to meet my mother near where they all lived, at Dunwich, you know the cliffs there?’

‘Yes,’ Mac said his unease deepening.

‘My mother met her up there, she had me in my buggy with her. Rose was the last person to see her alive.’

‘She … what? Hannah, what are you saying …?’

‘The papers said it was suicide. But I … I don’t know, I don’t think …’

‘Oh, come on now! You can’t be serious …’

But Hannah continued to tell him her story, the long sad tale of her childhood, how she’d tracked down the Lawsons, spied on their wonderful life, watched as her father doted on her siblings without a second thought for her. ‘My father, Mac, the father who’d given me away like I was rubbish.’ She’d wiped her tears. ‘Mac, even if you don’t believe that Rose killed my mother, her death was still Oliver’s fault, because of the way he treated her, the way he threw her away, threw both of us away.’