‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘I’ve read some really bad books.’ I was thinking specifically of Anne of Green Gables, which we’d been forced to read the term before and which was the most stupid, annoying book I’d ever encountered.

‘They weren’t bad books,’ Phin countered patiently. ‘They were books that you didn’t enjoy. It’s not the same thing at all. The only bad books are books that are so badly written that no one will publish them. Any book that has been published is going to be a “good book” for someone.’

I nodded. I couldn’t fault his logic.

‘I’ve nearly finished it,’ he said, glancing down at the book in his hand. ‘You can borrow it after me, if you want?’

I nodded again. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

And then he left. But I stood where I was, my head pulsating, my palms damp, my heart filled with something extraordinary and new.

18

Miller Roe stands as Libby approaches him. She recognises him from his photo on the internet, although he has grown a beard since he had his byline photo taken, and also gained some weight. He is halfway through a very messy sandwich and has a speck of yellow sauce in his beard. He wipes his fingers on a napkin before he takes Libby’s hand to shake and says, ‘Libby, wow, so good to meet you. So good to meet you!’ He has a London accent and dark blue eyes. His hand around hers is huge. ‘Here, sit down. What can I get you? The sandwiches are amazing.’

She glances down at his car crash sandwich and says, ‘I only just had breakfast.’

‘Coffee, tea?’

‘A cappuccino would be nice. Thank you.’

She watches him at the counter of the trendy café on West End Lane where he’d suggested they meet as a midway point between St Albans and South Norwood. He’s wearing low-slung jeans and a faded T-shirt, a green cotton jacket and walking boots. He has a big belly and a large head of thick dark brown hair. He’s slightly overwhelming to look at, ursine but not unappealing.

He brings back her cappuccino and places it in front of her. ‘So grateful to you for coming to meet me. I hope your journey was OK?’ He pushes his sandwich to one side as though he has no intention of eating any more.

‘No problem,’ she says, ‘fifteen minutes, straight through.’

‘From St Albans, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nice place, St Albans.’

‘Yes,’ she agrees. ‘I like it.’

‘So,’ he says, stopping and staring meaningfully at her, ‘you’re the baby.’

She laughs nervously. ‘It seems I am.’

‘And you’ve inherited that house?’

‘I have, yes.’

‘Wow,’ he says. ‘Game changer.’

‘Complete,’ she agrees.

‘Have you been to see it?’

‘The house?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yes, a couple of times.’

‘God.’ He throws himself back into his chair. ‘I tried so hard to get them to let me into that house. I was virtually offering the guy at the solicitors my firstborn. One night I even tried to break in.’

‘So you never actually saw it?’

‘No, I very much didn’t.’ He laughs wryly. ‘I peered through windows; I even sweet-talked the neighbours round the back to be allowed to look out of their windows. But never actually got in the house. What’s it like?’

‘It’s dark,’ she says. ‘Lots of wood panelling. Weird.’

‘And you’re going to sell it, I assume?’

‘I am going to sell it. Yes. But …’ She trails her fingertips around the rim of her coffee cup as she forms her next words. ‘First I want to know what happened there.’

Miller Roe makes a sort of growling noise under his breath and rubs his beard with his hand, dislodging the speck of yellow sauce. ‘God, you and me both. Two years of my life, that article took from me, two obsessed, insane, fucked-up years of my life. Destroyed my marriage and I still didn’t get the answers I was looking for. Nowhere near.’

He smiles at her. He has, she thinks, a nice face. She tries to guess his age, but she can’t. He could be anywhere between twenty-five and forty.

She reaches into her bag and pulls out the keys to Cheyne Walk, places them on the table in front of him.

His gaze drops on to them and she sees a wave of longing pass across his eyes. His hand reaches across the table. ‘Oh my God. May I?’

‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Go ahead.’

He stares at each key in turn, caresses the fobs. ‘A Jag?’ he says, looking up at her.

‘Apparently.’

‘You know, Henry Lamb, your dad, he used to be quite the Jack the Lad. Used to go screaming off hunting at the weekends, partying at Annabel’s on school nights.’

‘I know,’ she replies sanguinely. ‘I read your article.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Of course you did.’

There is a brief silence. Miller pulls the edge off his sandwich and puts it in his mouth. Libby takes a sip of her coffee.

‘So,’ he says, ‘what next?’

‘I want to find my brother and sister,’ she says.

‘So they’ve never tried to get in touch with you?’

‘No. Never. What’s your theory?’

‘I have a million theories. But the big question is: Do they know the house was held in trust for you? And if they knew, will they know that you’ve inherited it now?’

Libby sighs. ‘I don’t know. The solicitor said that the trust had been drawn up years before, when my brother was born. It was meant to go to him when he turned twenty-five. But he never came to claim it. Then to his sister, but she never came to claim it either … and of course the solicitors had no way of contacting either of them. But yes, I guess there’s a chance they knew it would come to me. Assuming …’ She was going to say they’re still alive, but stops herself.

‘And the guy,’ she says. ‘The man who died with my parents. In the article you said you followed a lot of dead leads. But you never managed to find out who it was?’

‘No, frustratingly not.’ Miller rubs his beard. ‘Although there was one name that came up. I had to give up in my search for him. But it’s nagged at me ever since. David Thomsen.’

Libby throws him a quizzical look.

‘There were initials on the suicide note, remember? ML, HL, DT. So I asked police for names of missing person cases that had involved the initials DT. David Thomsen was one of thirty-eight that they unearthed. Thirty-eight missing persons with the initials DT. Ten within the John Doe’s estimated age range. And one by one I eliminated all of them.

‘But this one fascinated me. I don’t know. There was just something about his story that rang true. Forty-two-year-old guy from Hampshire. Normal upbringing. But no record of him anywhere, not since he arrived back in the UK from France, in 1988, with a wife called Sally, and two children, Phineas and Clemency. The four of them arrive by ferry from Saint-Malo into Portsmouth in …’ He flicks through a notebook for a moment. ‘… September 1988. And then there is literally no trace of any of them from that point onwards: no doctors’ records, no tax, no school registers, no hospital visits, nothing. Their families described them as “loners” – there were rifts and grudges, a huge falling-out over an inheritance of some sort. So nobody wondered where they were. Not for years and years. Until David Thomsen’s mother, nearing the end of her life, decides she wants a deathbed reconciliation and reports her son and his family as missing persons. The police run some perfunctory searches, find no trace of David or his family, then David’s mother dies and no one asks about David or Sally Thomsen ever again. Until me, three years ago.’ Miller sighs. ‘I tried so hard to track them down. Phineas. Clemency. Unusual names. If they were out there they’d have been easy enough to find. But nothing. Not a trace. And I needed to file the article, I needed to get paid, I had to give up.’ He shakes his head. ‘Can you see now? Can you see why it took two years, why it nearly killed me? Why my wife left me? I was literally a research zombie. It was all I talked about, all I thought about.’

He sighs and runs his fingers across the bunch of keys. ‘But yes. Let’s do it. Let’s find out what happened to all those people. Let’s find out what happened to you.’

He holds his hand out to hers to shake. ‘Are we on, Serenity Lamb?’

‘Yes,’ says Libby, putting her hand in his. ‘We’re on.’

Libby goes straight to the showroom from her breakfast with Miller Roe. It’s only half past nine and Dido barely registers her lateness. When she does, she does a double take and says, in an urgent whisper, ‘Oh God! The journalist! How did it go!’

‘Amazing,’ Libby replies. ‘We’re going to meet at the house this evening. Start our investigation.’

‘Just you,’ says Dido, her nose wrinkling slightly, ‘and him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hmm. Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

‘What? Why?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s not what he seems.’ Dido narrows her eyes at her. ‘I think I should come too.’

Libby blinks slowly and then smiles. ‘You could have just asked.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Dido turns back to her laptop. ‘I just want to look out for you.’