‘He said they could fix it so that the baby was registered as ours and nobody would ever know otherwise. It would go to a good home and we’d have a son and we’d never have to have that talk. He’d never need to know he was adopted and we’d never need to worry about someone else knowing and telling him. Amazing how simple it looks when it’s the middle of the night and you’re desperate and deluded.’

‘Weren’t you concerned that people would notice your wife hadn’t been pregnant?’ Catherine asked.

‘Wilma hadn’t been out much in a long time,’ he said. ‘As I mentioned, she had become very withdrawn, very depressed. And very much larger. I believe they call it “comfort-eating” these days. That night, she came downstairs when she heard us talking. When Fletcher told her, she didn’t need asking twice. We didn’t think we were doing anything more wrong than skipping the queue, bypassing the red tape of the adoption procedure.’

‘When did you find out otherwise?’

‘By the end of the week, the story was all over the news about the Ramsays. I tried to deny it for a while, told myself it was a coincidence, but inside, I knew. I dug around discreetly, found no record of any woman dying from an overdose that night or even that week.’

‘Did you challenge Fletcher?’

‘Delicately. He eventually admitted there had been no dead junkie, but he said it wouldn’t benefit me to know more. “We’re just making the best of something that can’t be changed.” That was how he put it. I left it at that; I knew he was right. I didn’t want to know more, and it couldn’t be changed. I couldn’t take the baby back from Wilma by that point, and I never told her. It was my burden to carry.’

‘Put you in a compromising position, though, didn’t it?’ Catherine suggested. ‘Police officers knowing this about you.’

He shook his head ruefully.

‘No. I was the one who had power over them. At worst, all I had done was participate in an illegal adoption. I don’t know what happened to the Ramsays, but I knew Fletcher and his colleagues had more to lose if the truth ever emerged; not that I would ever have allowed that to happen. It would have been devastating to Wilma and, as time went on, to Dominic.’

‘Is this why the police were so understanding during Dominic’s wild years?’ Catherine asked. ‘Were strings being pulled, favours called in?’