Ed gazes up at me.

'Where do you live?' I ask.

'A bit away,' he says solemnly.

'Just one more thing?' Lorcan's voice sounds close now.

Kelly is almost here. I don't have much time.

Ed is gazing up at me. I can't stop staring at him, soaking up his innocent little face and round dark eyes, while my heart surges with emotion. I know I should move away. That I have his name and I know where he goes to school . . . that I'll only frighten the child if I try to say much more . . . that Lorcan can't hold his nanny off for much longer . . . but I can't stop looking. I take out my phone, praying none of the adults notice what I'm doing.

'Say "cheese"!' I say.

Ed frowns. I take the picture fast.

'Thanks.'

Ed just stares at me. This is my child. My baby. It's like a switch has been flicked on in my heart and I realize just how empty and abstract my previous imaginings were. This child who stands before me is real a flesh-and-blood mix of my body and Art's. Love grabs me like a fist. It holds me prisoner, as real as the child in front of me.

It's a love I would die for.

'We have to go, Ed.' Kelly sails past me, grabbing the little boy by the wrist. She stares at me as she drags him away, her eyes widening in horror. So, like Bobs, she's seen my picture. She knows who I am. She's been warned against me. 'Come on, Ed.'

My insides twist with panic. Knowing Ed's name and school isn't enough. Art could take him away from here this afternoon. They could vanish, never to be seen again.

The little boy grumbles, but lets himself be led away. Kelly is practically running now.

I start after them, a brisk, urgent walk. 'We have to follow them,' I say.

The area by the school gate is crowded and I lose sight of them several times, but Lorcan forges a path through the people and we reach the car a few seconds later.

Kelly and Ed are visible, several metres along the road. Ed is clearly making a fuss at being dragged along. After a moment, Kelly opens the door of a large 4x4 car and Ed disappears into the back seat.

I look down at the photo on my phone. The expression is Art's but there's something about the set of the mouth and the curve of the nose that reminds me of my dad again.

This is my son. The words seep through my mind, becoming real as I think them. This is my son.

Now I have found him, I can't lose him again.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Lorcan starts the engine and manoeuvres away from the kerb. We stay behind the 4x4 for a couple of streets. My whole body is tense, desperate not to lose sight of the car.

'What did the nanny say?' I ask.

'Nothing,' Lorcan says. 'She just kept looking over at you. I pretended I had a kid who'd just started at the school, but she wasn't really listening.'

The big car drives on. I'm leaning forward in my seat, trying to catch a glimpse of Ed. After a few minutes, the car stops outside a large, gated house.

I peer through the windscreen, watching as the iron gates to the house open. The 4x4 drives through. As the gates shut behind it, Lorcan drives slowly by.

'Okay, well, we have an address now.' He looks at me. 'Are you all right?'

I nod. I'm trying to convince myself, as much as Lorcan. I could so easily fall to pieces right now, but I mustn't. I have to stay strong for Ed. I gaze up at the house where he lives with the woman he thinks of as his mother . . . with Art visiting when he can. Clearly they have plenty of money. And Ed seemed well-nourished and content. A happy child. That's a consolation, at least.

For the first time it strikes me that this isn't a child desperate to be rescued, but an ordinary boy settled into a normal, comfortable life. The house is three storeys, detached, brick. There's a lawn at the front. There are rose bushes. There are oak trees. And there is the locked, high gate.

I look down at my nail-bitten hands. All my life I've been on the outside. As a child, hiding my dad's long absences; as a teenager, not wanting to admit to his death, which made me different from other kids. And on and on. Always on the outside. And here, now, I'm on the outside of Ed's life. I don't have a part to play. I am not needed.

Maybe, though it hurts like hell to even think it, I will cause him more harm than good by coming into his life.

'Gen?' I realize Lorcan is speaking to me. I turn to him, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in my stomach.

'I think we have enough to go to the police now. All it's going to take to confirm what we already know is some DNA, which they'll have to organize once they hear our story. That will just take a few days, then-'

'We can't wait a few days,' I interrupt. 'Art could take Ed out of the country by then.'

Lorcan puts his hand on my arm. 'Easy,' he says. 'The police will be able to stop them leaving the country. We just need to explain what we've found out.'

I glance over at the house again. 'I don't want to leave him.'

'Okay.' Lorcan frowns. 'How about this . . . we'll call you a cab. You go to the police. Explain everything. I'll wait here. If someone takes the boy, I'll follow them.'

I think it over. It makes sense. The only alternative is for me to stay and for Lorcan to speak to the police, but this is my story. It should come from me.

'Trust me, Gen,' Lorcan says. 'I know it's hard, but it's your best option right now.'

'Okay.' My phone rings. I look at the screen expecting the call to be from Art, but instead I see Hen's name. I hesitate, then take the call.

'Hello?'

'Oh, Gen.' Her voice is at breaking point, teary and strained. 'I've been so worried about you. Art's been on the phone every five minutes. He's frantic. Why have you run away? I keep thinking about your face when I talked about Art and I've been so upset all day that you could even think that we . . . that me and Art . . .' She pauses for breath and I can hear her sniffing. 'Oh, Gen, please tell me you believe me, please.'

I stare out of the car window, feeling numb. Part of me wants to tell Hen what I know just to hear her reaction . . . that Ed exists . . . that Art has a double life with some other woman . . . that people have been killed to keep this information hidden . . . But it's hard to say the words.

'Gen?' Hen is clearly on the verge of tears. 'Please talk to me.'

My mind flashes back to her conviction that Art's 'MDO' payment stood for Manage Debt Online. Hen knows more than she's told me. I'm sure of it.

'What do you know, Hen?' I ask. 'If you want me to trust you, you have to be honest. I know there's something you haven't told me, so please don't lie. It was about that money, wasn't it? Something about Art being in debt?'

'He isn't . . . it wasn't . . .' Hen sobs. 'Oh, Gen, no.'

'No what?'

'Nothing.' She sniffs again. 'It's nothing.'

She's definitely hiding something. I can hear it in her voice. 'Okay, if you're not going to tell me . . .' I wait.

There's a tense pause, then Hen's voice cracks. 'It was . . . it is, oh Gen, I didn't want you to know . . .'

My stomach twists into knots. 'Know what?'

Hen takes a deep breath. 'Art paid that fifty grand for me,' Hen explains. 'I was broke, okay? Nat had just been born and I was in terrible debt, worse than I ever admitted to you. I'd signed up with Manage Debt Online because I thought it would all be clean and simple and done over the internet, but they're loan sharks. When I couldn't pay the loan back, they added interest, then they came after me, threatening me . . . and Nat . . .'

I think back. Hen was certainly in debt all the time I knew her, until her marriage to Rob. But could things really have been that bad without her telling me?

'Why didn't you say something?' I said.

'At first because I was embarrassed . . . ashamed, almost . . . I mean you were so sorted about everything. You'd got your books published, you'd found Art . . . I had nothing. No job, no man.' She pauses. 'Then you lost your baby and my worries seemed pathetic next to that, so . . .' She tails off.

'But you told Art?' She's surely making this up. 'Art gave you fifty grand?'

'He loaned it to me,' Hen insists. 'He found me crying when I came to see you after Beth . . . I poured it all out to him and he offered to help. God, Gen, I paid him back. Bits here and there for years. And Rob paid off the balance last year, so it's all over, Gen. Finished.'

I still can't believe this is all Art's MDO payment amounts to. 'So why didn't you tell me?'

'Tell you what?'

'That you needed the money? That Art gave it to you? Why didn't he tell me?' Terrifying possibilities crowd my head. My husband and my best friend in hushed conversation behind my back. One thing leading to another. Secrets.

More secrets.

'Were you . . . did you . . .?'

'No,' Hen wails. 'No, Gen, how can you think that? I just owed a lot of money and Art helped. You know I was in debt back then.'

'Why didn't you say something when I asked you last week?'

'I couldn't tell you last week because I didn't tell you eight years ago. And I didn't tell you eight years ago because . . .' She hesitates.

'Why?' I sit up in the passenger seat, trembling. I'm aware of Lorcan beside me. He's staring at me, his eyes filled with concern. 'Give me one good reason why you didn't tell me, your best friend, that your debts were that bad?'

'Isn't it obvious?'

What the hell does that mean? 'I don't-'

'For goodness' sake, Gen; your baby had just bloody died. You couldn't look at mine without crying.'

'But you could have still told me.'

'Could I?' Hen's voice hardens. 'The way I remember it, no one else was really allowed to have anything bad going on in their lives back then.'

I gasp. 'That's not fair.'

'Yes, it is,' Hen snaps. 'D'you have any idea how hard it was for me to be a single mother . . . a first-time mother . . . and have my best friend completely cut off from me?'

'I know I wasn't there for you but-'

'I'm not blaming you! Jesus.' Hen sobs, her voice softening again. 'I know how hard it was for you and how hard it was for you to see me with Nat. I'm just trying to explain that I was desperate and Art offered to help. That's all there was to it.'

'No.' I won't believe it. Hen has betrayed me, just like Art did. And now there's no way I can trust anything she tells me. It's possible her story is true. But isn't it equally possible that Art paid her the money for some other reason? Could she have found out he took our baby away? Did she know about Art's other family?

'Were you blackmailing him?' I demand.

'No, oh, for God's sake, Gen. Eight years ago it was like you died. Art was devastated, yes, but he carried on with his life. You . . . you stopped living. To be honest, I don't think you've started living again. Not properly.'

For a moment I feel the truth of what she's said: the weight of the past few years crushing me; not just losing my baby, but everything damaged or destroyed because of that loss.

'I have to go now,' I say. The air in the car feels heavy. Dull. Flat. There's no point talking to Hen. I still can't trust what she tells me.

'Gen?'

'Bye.' I ring off and close my eyes. How has my life come to this? That I'm sitting here, having to face the fact that my husband and my best friend have kept so much hidden from me; that I can't trust a word either of them says; that a man I have known for less than a week should be the one sitting beside me at the most important moment of my life.

'What was that-?'

'It doesn't matter now.' I turn to Lorcan. He's holding his phone in his hand, still looking troubled. 'Have you found the nearest police station?'

'Yes,' he says. 'It's about five miles away, in a town called Enshott. I've called you a cab.'

I stare out of the window at the house where my child lives. I am still so far from the whole truth.

The taxi arrives. I glance over at the house again. There's no sign of anyone coming or going. I lean over and kiss Lorcan on the cheek. 'Stay safe,' I say.

'Gen?'

'I'll call you from the police station.'

As the cab heads off towards Enshott, my phone rings again. I'm anticipating another call from Hen or maybe Art, but when I glance at the screen I see that the caller is Bernard O'Donnell. We haven't spoken since Lorcan and I set off for Shepton Longchamp hours earlier. Discovering Ed pushed all thoughts of Bernard out of my head.

I snatch the phone to my ear. 'Bernard? I'm sorry I haven't called. We're in Shepton Longchamp and-'

'I'm here too.' Bernard's voice cuts through mine. I stop talking instantly, wondering what new revelation is coming.

'I've been following your husband. He went to the Wardingham Arms again, early this afternoon.'

I gasp. Art must have arrived soon after Lorcan and I left for Somerset.

'This time I waited outside and I saw him leave and walk to another hotel . . . the . . . the Princess Alice.' Bernard is speaking so fast the words are tumbling over themselves. 'I saw him get into a VW car. I followed him here, to Shepton Longchamp. He's just parked outside a garage . . . a lock-up on the edge of town. Looks like he's waiting for something.'