‘This.’ Dominic pushes his phone towards her.

I keep blinking. I don’t have to look down to know what picture’s flashing up on the screen. ‘This is what changed everything. This is their new evidence. This is a photo of Minchin’s pet. They call her Baby Girl A. She was Marie’s … she was Carly’s half-sister. This is a photo of Kayleigh.’

I force myself to stare as hard as I can bear into the light 262beaming through the window, dark spots blocking everything else out.

‘They … they all promised me she’d be taken care of, in exchange for my original testimony. That’s the only reason I did it, that I turned … I thought I was saving her, as much as myself and all the others. Over the years it became harder and harder to visit her, as she started living her new life. She forgot who I was, didn’t want to remember. Every time she saw me it … it turned everything sour, set her back too much. But then, when I saw Dominic show Jemima her picture—’

‘Jemima,’ Olivia interrupts again, glaring at Dominic as the phone drops out of her hand. ‘Why isn’t she here? She doesn’t know about all this?’

‘No,’ he says, arm brushing mine as he stands again. ‘She doesn’t. Given the gravity of it all, I brought it straight to you. The less links in the chain, the better. And we don’t have much time.’ He’s suddenly forceful, ready to fight again. I straighten with him.

‘I went back to them once I’d seen it,’ I say, before Olivia’s had a chance to argue. ‘A big part of me wanted to believe it couldn’t be true, but deep down I think I already knew it was … I’d overheard so much of what Dominic and Jemima had already found out. Dominic told me that Baby Girl A’s mother had previously been involved with the captain – Captain Robert Leigh Parish. That he’d been using other family members to get to her. And that’s when I figured out that he must have been our dad too. Jason and I never knew him. He died – or at least, we were told he had – before I was born. And that’s…’

‘…when you decided enough was enough.’ Olivia finishes my sentence for me, a small smile playing round her mouth. There’s something in her tone that’s off, something I can’t quite work out. A cloud throws shadow across her eyes, just long enough for me to know I’m right. And then it comes.

‘So tell me, then, Marie. What could possibly have been so rotten as to motivate Parish to groom his own flesh and blood? 263Have either of you paused to consider this for longer than a microsecond?’