Rivka’s eyes grew wider as she listened. ‘Bloody hell. I thought once you were on the register, you were on it for life.’

‘It seems that’s not the way it works.’

‘Then you’ve no idea where Victor is?’

Jodie shook her head. ‘According to Emma Carlton, as soon as his name was removed, he left the rented apartment he was living in. He’d no obligation thereafter to inform the authorities where he lived.’

‘What about his family? There must be someone you could contact.’

‘I was fourteen. I never met any of them, never even saw them. They were at his trial, of course, but don’t forget, I gave my evidence behind closed doors so never saw them there either.’ She shrugged. ‘I have a vague idea there was a sister living in Wales or somewhere.’

‘Hill is a pretty common surname.’ Rivka tapped her fingers on the side of her chair. ‘It wouldn’t be easy to track them down.’

‘I know.’ Jodie sighed loudly. ‘His parents may not even be alive and his sister is possibly married so her name could be anything.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’ She saw Rivka’s frown and tilted her head. ‘What?’

‘I was thinking about the baby shoes.’ Rivka’s tone was anxious, as if afraid of what she was about to suggest. ‘I was just thinking of who else would have reason to remind you of that baby and the answer slapped me in the face.’ She leaned forward and put her hand over Jodie’s. ‘Haven’t you considered that it might be your son?’

19

Jodie remembered the tears. The tantrums. The vocal demands. She’d begged and pleaded with her mother to tell her where her son had gone, swore to her that she simply wanted one look before he vanished forever.

One look. She’d never seen him, her mother holding her hands tightly over the sobbing Jodie’s eyes when the baby, after one gut-wrenching push, was finally delivered into a world that swirled around his mother, a maelstrom of pain for a fourteen-year-old to cope with. Jodie hadn’t seen him then and the long and difficult birth had rendered her incapable of fighting her cause for days. It wasn’t until the pain of the birth had faded that Jodie fought to take one look at her son. Fought in vain.

Her mother remained adamant that it was for the best. That it would be easier for her to forget, easier to put the whole terrible ordeal behind her. Finally, she’d grabbed the weeping Jodie by her shoulders and told her bluntly, ‘He’s gone away. The family that adopted him emigrated as soon as the paperwork was signed.’