“No middle name?”

“Yes, one that I hate, which is why I don’t mention it. Do you really need to know my middle name?”

“We always take full names,” Sam says. “Sorry.”

“Jasmine.” It’s a big clue to the kind of daughter my parents wanted: uncomplicated, sweet, compliant. I hate flower names. I might label a packet of potpourri “Poppy” or “Daisy,” but never a person.

“Just Nicki?” Waterhouse asks. “Not short for anything?”

Bastard. “Nichola.” Which would be OK if my father’s name weren’t Nicholas.

“Are you employed?” asks Sam.

“No. Not since I had my two children.”

Damon Blundy, murdered. I can’t believe it. Gone. Irreplaceable. I never met him, but I know he was unique—somebody the world couldn’t afford to lose. No one else will ever think what Damon thought, or write what he wrote. Why can’t it be some boring average person who died instead? Someone like me.

“Names and ages?” Sam asks.

“I . . . Pardon?” Get it together, Nicki.

“Your children.”

“Sophie and Ethan. Ten and eight.”

“And before you had them, what did you do?”

“I was an NHS manager. I supervised a team of midwives and health visitors in North London. We only moved to Spilling very recently.”

“How recently?” Sam asks. “And from where?”

“Just over six months ago, from London. Highgate. On December twentieth last year.”

I’m surprised to find that answering these questions is doing me some good. Listing facts about myself makes me feel as if I have a solid presence in the world that couldn’t easily be erased.

“And your husband? What’s his name, and what does he do?”

He doesn’t erase me. None of this is his fault. I love him.

The only person threatening the Nicki Clements that Sam and Waterhouse are looking at now, the only person likely to want or need to erase her, is the other Nicki, the secret one.

If the only danger I’m facing comes from within me, there ought to be something I can do to stop it. So why do I feel as if I can’t?

“Nicki? Your husband?” Sam prompts.

“Adam. Clements—same surname as me. He works in IT support. For the army.”

“Did the army transfer him from London to the Culver Valley?”

“He got a transfer to the Rawndesley army careers office when we moved, yes.”

“Thank you.” Sergeant Sam smiles, my reward for good behavior. “And your address?”

“Nineteen Bartholomew Gardens, Spilling.”

The urge to pull my phone out of my bag and check my Hushmail account is overwhelmingly strong. Has Gavin emailed me since I last looked?

Who cares? How dare he call Damon Blundy evil? If that’s what he really thinks, then he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

He might have emailed to say sorry.

Maybe I could subtly slide my phone out and . . . No. Crazy. I clench my fists in my lap.