Catherine let herself breathe again. Honor’s incessant questions about her family. The spate of night terrors triggered by Shannon Carter’s messages. The girl’s obsession with her mobile phone. All of it made sense now. Her heart had filled with empathy for her daughter.

‘It was impossible for Honor to unpick the truth from the lies. It confused her, the things Shannon was saying about you. But Shannon had an agenda. The police believe she’d been searching for you for years, concerned the truth would emerge, and had agreed to the television interview in an attempt to flush you out.’ He held out his phone to show her a picture. ‘She manipulated Honor into sending her this photograph of the holiday let in Norfolk. Honor didn’t say where it was, she wasn’t that daft.’ A hollow laugh. ‘But it was a stupid thing to do. Shannon did a reverse image search. She found you without even trying.’

Catherine remembered the warning from her probation officer, how so many people in Identity Protection were given away by their children.

Edward kissed her cheek, offered a rueful smile. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I let you down very badly. I should have believed you.’ He rubbed his beard. ‘We’ll be all right, though, won’t we?’ But he could not conceal the doubt in his voice.

Her anger had faded now, washed away to nothing, but her sorrow had not. Honor was easy to forgive. She was still a child, prone to poor judgement. During that first visit to her mother, she had wept through her apology, dampening the sheet with tears. ‘This is all my fault.’ Catherine had stroked her bent head, full of comfort and love.

But Edward was different. He should have known better. Trusted her. Or at least given her an opportunity to explain. Instead, he had run at the first sign of trouble. She didn’t know yet if their marriage was worth salvaging. She still loved him but the shine had dulled. She was making no promises.

Brinley had been to visit too.

She’d walked in with a stick – she’d damaged the nerve endings in her leg when she’d tripped over the rug – but she’d waved her injuries away with an airy hand. ‘I’m fine, but how are you?’

Catherine had answered, quite truthfully, that, despite her sister’s death, she felt lighter than she had done in years.

Brinley had squeezed her friend’s arm, and told her about her pay rise, and the job offer at a prestigious newspaper abroad, and how she had found it within herself to crawl up the stairs, retrieve a phone from Shannon’s bag and call for an ambulance, but had almost died from blood loss herself.

‘What about your aunt?’