“But that’s not true,” he said, very slowly. Hal nodded. She felt something inside her grow quite still, waiting.

“Oh God,” Ezra said. He put his face in his hands. “Abel. What have you done?”

“So . . . he was lying?”

“Yes. But I don’t know why he would protect him.”

“Protect who?” Hal asked. She was almost certain she already knew, but she needed to hear the name—hear it from the lips of someone who had been there, someone who could tell her for sure.

“Edward.”

Hal felt her stomach turn inside her, as if she were on the Twister at the foot of the pier and it had flipped her in a great arc above the sea, one of those sickening twists that left you gasping.

So it was true.

She swallowed. It was so strange. All the pieces had pointed to him—the name in the diary, the blue eyes . . . and yet . . . and yet she felt no connection to him, and now that Ezra had confirmed her suspicions she felt nothing except a kind of sickness.

He is my father, she thought, trying to make it real. Edward is my father—why would my mother lie about it all these years?

Why had he said nothing? Abel must know the truth after all—or suspect it, at least—or else why would he have lied to protect his lover from Hal’s inquiries?

But why lie? Why should Edward hide his identity from his own daughter?

Unless . . . unless there was something else he was hiding. . . .

“Edward,” she managed, her lips dry. “He was definitely there? He was the one taking the photograph?”

Ezra nodded.

“So he’s my . . .” But she could not say the word aloud. She shut her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temples, trying to see him. There was nothing of herself in his face—but perhaps that was not surprising. When she opened her eyes and stared down at the photograph on the table, it was her own face she saw, in her mother’s. She was her mother’s daughter, through and through.

It was as if her mother had erased her father’s DNA through sheer force of will.

“Hal—don’t,” Ezra said awkwardly. He looked profoundly uncomfortable and ill-equipped to be having this conversation, and Hal could tell that every atom of him would have rather got up and walked into the night, but that he was steeling himself to see this through. “Don’t jump to conclusions, it’s just a picture.”

But Hal had spent too long reading the diary, too long puzzling it out, to believe him. It was the only way it made sense. Edward—the man taking the picture—was her father. And for some reason Abel was desperate to conceal that fact. Desperate enough to tell a lie he must have known would come home to roost at some point.

“I don’t get it,” Hal said. She looked down. Her fingers were crushing the paper cup of coffee, and she forced them to release. “Why would he lie?”

“I don’t know.” They sat in silence for a long minute, and then Ezra, with an effort, put out his hand to Hal’s shoulder. “Hal, are—are you okay?”

“I’m not sure,” she whispered, and for a moment he rested his hand there and she felt the warmth of his fingers striking through her jacket, and she had a great urge to turn and cry into his shoulder. There was silence as she struggled to master herself.

Then Ezra let his hand drop and the moment was broken. He picked up his cup and took a long gulp of coffee, then made a face.

“God, I wish I could have a proper drink. I’d kill for a glass of red, right now.”

“There’s a restaurant over the other side of the food court,” Hal said, but he shook his head.

“Better not. I’m tired enough. Though of course there’s nothing stopping you, if you want one.”

“I don’t,” Hal said, rather awkwardly. “Drink, I mean.”

Ezra picked up the paper cup and sipped again, looking at her over the top with his dark eyes. They were nearly coal-black, a brown so deep that the pupil and iris merged almost into one.

“What’s the story behind that, then?”

“No story,” Hal said, automatically defensive, and then she felt bad. There was no truth to hide anymore, no point in holding her cards close to her chest. And this man had been kind, and had told her the truth where others had lied, and was going above and beyond his duty to try to get her home. She owed it to him to repay his honesty in kind. “Well, a bit of a story, to be honest. I mean, I’m not in AA or anything like that, but I just found . . . it was after my mother died. Drinking stopped being fun, somehow. It became . . . it was a way of coping, for a bit. And I don’t like crutches.”

“I can understand that,” Ezra said quietly. He looked down at the paper cup, seeming to study something in the peaty depths. “Maggie was always very independent. I don’t think she really liked living with us for that reason. It was, well, a kind of charity, I suppose, and Mother never let her forget it. There was always this unspoken feeling that she needed to earn her place by being grateful, or some kind of bullshit.”

“What—” Hal felt her breath catch in her throat. “What was she like, Ezra, when you knew her?”

Ezra smiled. He did not look up at Hal, but there was something a little sad in his expression as he stared down into his coffee cup, swirling the dregs thoughtfully.

“She was . . . she was fun. Kind. I liked her very much.”

“Ezra, do you—” She swallowed. Suddenly she wanted that glass of wine very much indeed. As much as Ezra did, perhaps. “Do you think I should . . . say something? To Edward?”

“I don’t know,” Ezra said. His face was suddenly very grave.

“Why didn’t he say anything?”

“He may not know, I guess.”

“But she knew. My mother, I mean. Why wouldn’t she have said anything?”

“Hal, I don’t know,” Ezra said, and suddenly his face was twisted with an emotion that he seemed to be trying to master, and failing. “Hal, look, I wouldn’t normally interfere, but I can’t stand by and—what I’m trying to say—” He stopped and ran his hands through his hair. “Harriet.” The use of her full name stopped her somehow, in her tracks. “Please, please, leave this.”

“Leave it? What do you mean?”

“Leave it alone. It’s in the past. Your mother clearly didn’t tell you this deliberately—and I don’t know why she chose to keep it secret, but she must have had her reasons, and maybe they were good ones.”

“But—” Hal leaned forwards in her chair. “But don’t you understand? I have to know. This is my father we’re talking about. Don’t you think I have a right to know about him?”

Ezra said nothing.

“And it’s not just my mother—it’s—it’s everything. What happened to Maud? Why did she and my mother run away together, and why did Maud disappear?”

“Hal, I don’t know,” Ezra said heavily. He stood up and paced to the tall glass wall at the front of the service station, his shape silhouetted against the falling snow and the lamps in the car park. They had dimmed the lights in the food court now, and Hal had the feeling they were getting ready to close.

“Is Maud dead?” she persisted. “Is she hiding?”

“I don’t know!” Ezra cried, and this time it was more a shout of fury. Across the food court, a boy in a uniform stopped sweeping up crumbs and looked towards them, his expression puzzled and alarmed.

For a moment Hal felt a prickle of fear, but then Ezra rested his forehead very gently on the windowpane, and his shoulders seemed to sag in a kind of despair, and she understood.

Of course. She had been so blindly focused on her own need for answers that she had forgotten—this was his past too. Maud was his twin, the person he had been closest to in all the world, and she had cut him off too, without explanation, and disappeared. He had lived with that uncertainty for longer than Hal had lived with hers.

“Oh God, Ezra.” She stood too, walked towards him, and put out her hand, but let it fall, not quite daring to touch his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think—she’s your sister, you must—”