He’d stared at her. ‘So what do you want with me?’ he asked at last. ‘Why am I here?’ He was still trying to get his head around how completely he’d been duped, how entirely he’d believed their meeting had been mere chance.

She’d leant forward. ‘I want you to help me teach Oliver a lesson. I want to make him see that he can’t treat people like that, his own daughter, and get away with it.’

Mac had begun to search around for his clothes then. ‘I’m sorry but I think you better go now.’

‘I’m telling the truth!’ she cried. ‘My mother was Nadia Freeman. Her body was found washed up in the sea at Dunwich in 1981. It would have been in all the local papers. Look it up if you don’t believe me. Nadia Freeman was my mother. And Oliver Lawson is my father.’

He couldn’t look at her. ‘I don’t want any part of this. I don’t think we should see each other again.’

He didn’t hear from her in the weeks that followed, but he thought about her often. Could her strange tale be true? He could go to the library in Suffolk, look Nadia Freeman up in the local papers archive, but even if someone had died with her name, it didn’t mean Oliver or Rose had anything to do with it. All the same, something kept nagging at him. He had always thought Hannah seemed vaguely familiar, and as soon as she began telling him who she really was, he had realized why: she was the absolute spitting image of Luke and Oliver. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before, but now that he had, it was undeniable. Every day his unease grew. She’d been so convincing. She hadn’t seemed insane at all.

At the end of the second week he got a call from Luke. ‘All right, stranger? Where’ve you been hiding? What you up to this weekend?’

‘Oh you know … work. Not really got any plans, why?’

‘It’s my dad’s birthday this weekend. Me and Clara are going up there for the party. You fancy it? I know you said you were planning on going up to see your mum soon anyway. Clara was only saying this morning that she misses you. Come, it’ll be fun.’