‘Don’t you think it’s time you started telling me the truth?’ she asked.

I smiled, which only annoyed her.

‘Something funny?’ she asked.

‘I’ve only ever told you the truth,’ I replied.

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Why did you confess? You could have put up a defence.’

‘Who would have believed me?’ I replied. ‘Besides, I had my reasons.’

‘The secret?’ she asked.

‘The secret,’ I conceded. ‘You won’t find out today, but in time you’ll know what it is and why it must be kept.’

‘In time?’ she replied. ‘There is no more time. I get to move on. You’re going to be trapped in here for at least eleven years.’

‘I don’t want us to fight,’ I said.

‘We’re not a couple,’ she snapped. ‘Just tell me one thing. Is he your son?’

I hope it’s not a question that ever troubles you, my dearest Elliot, and I shall tell you what I told her.

‘Why is the world so sordid? We never see beyond our own limited perspectives. We can never look at the world through other people’s eyes.’

I knew exactly what she was suggesting; that I’d had an affair with your mother, that your father had found out and killed her, been overcome with remorse and taken his own life. The tawdry imaginings of people who don’t understand what we’ve been through.

‘The uniform suits you,’ I said.

She was in her full dress uniform. Perhaps in an attempt to intimidate me or to show me how much she’d moved on.

‘The day after your sentencing, someone sent me a video I’d spent months looking for. The footage exonerated me. I got my job back.’

‘I’m happy for you,’ I told her honestly.

‘But you don’t know anything about it?’

‘Why would I?’

‘Don’t you think the timing is strange?’ she remarked.

‘Perhaps, but there are such things as coincidences.’

‘Like us meeting?’ she asked. ‘Months before I started investigating you for murder.’

‘That was no coincidence,’ I replied. ‘That was love.’

‘It was an illusion built on lies,’ she snapped back.

‘It was real,’ I assured her. ‘One day you’ll understand.’

She shook her head and sighed. ‘No one’s interested in your cryptic little games any more. You’ve lost.’

‘In that case, if you feel anything for me, anything at all, even the tiniest fragment of pity, please don’t come here again,’ I said.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘It’s too painful. I’ve got a long time ahead of me. I need to forget what lies outside these walls,’ I told her. ‘We’ll meet again, Harri.’

I didn’t wait for her to respond. I got to my feet and asked Anya to take me back to C-Block.

I glanced over my shoulder as we left, and saw Harriet Kealty in her beautifully pressed police uniform, rising from the table, totally perplexed.

I knew it was the last I’d see of her for a very, very long time.

I don’t think she is likely to contact you, but if she does, remember what binds us. The secret once broken can never be remade. It is ours and ours alone, and I hope that no matter what happens, you will honour that. I know you will.