Mouth half open, Ursula was clutching a piece of paper in each hand, eyes enormous. ‘Oh!’ Her voice was breathy with alarm as she stared at them. ‘Oh, Zia!’

Zia craned, but couldn’t see what was making Ursula look as if she’d just discovered her bank account had been emptied. ‘What on earth’s up?’

Slowly, hazel eyes glittering oddly, Ursula turned the two pieces of paper and laid them before Zia. ‘These are birth and death certificates for Victoria Chalmers, too. But the dates are different.’

‘Different to … the other lot? How can they be?’ Zia stared at the two documents. Heart thumping, she tried to take in the words unknown registrars had written in flowing fountain pen, forcing her reluctant brain to accept the evidence in front of her eyes.

Ursula was right.

Here were a separate set of birth and death certificates for Victoria Chalmers. With trembling fingers, she dug out the certificates she’d examined earlier and laid them alongside. Ursula shifted her chair closer so she could compare them, too. From the kitchen the oven timer pinged, insistent in the silence, but neither woman answered its summons.

Zia moistened dry lips. ‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing. There were two Victoria Chalmers, both born in Devon. Mum died in 2001, in Cambridgeshire, aged forty-five. The other died in Exmouth in 1991, when she was eighteen.’ She scrabbled for the folders of school reports and certificates and examined them with fresh eyes. ‘I didn’t notice before but these are from different periods! What the hell?’

Ursula’s voice was thin and uncertain. ‘So, your mum was seventeen when the other Victoria was born.’ She propped her chin on her hand.

The oven timer continued to ping in counterpoint to the gull’s plaintive calls but Zia heard the shush-shush of her heartbeat louder than both. As spooked as a child at a horror film, she had to force her breathing to be even. ‘Could the second Victoria have been my sister, or half-sister? One Mum gave up for adoption, maybe, because she was too young to cope? That might explain why the baby was registered with the same name as Mum – the adoptive family chooses the baby a new name anyway, don’t they, and the adopted baby gets a new birth certificate?’

‘I don’t know. But …’ Ursula arched her brows at Zia. ‘The second Victoria might not be your sister. Could she be … your mum?’

‘No,’ Zia whispered. ‘That can’t be. Why would Mum hide the fact my real mother had died? Why would Gran and Pap?’ Ignored, the timer stopped pinging of its own accord.

‘Same goes if she was your sister,’ Ursula pointed out. ‘The letters might give us clues.’